


may we begin again?

by revengefrankislife



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: M/M, Multi, Violence, rape mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-15
Updated: 2018-06-16
Packaged: 2019-05-23 16:34:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 36,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14937933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/revengefrankislife/pseuds/revengefrankislife
Summary: 'A smile, a twitch of the wrist.'Sentient heat trapped in a temporary body gone cold. He’d rather die than become anything like that.-or, kevin tunes into triptych and hears his future self





	1. triptych

**Author's Note:**

> hello! welcome to this kevin fic that literally nobody asked for. it's actually completely finished already so don't worry about me giving up like i've done with every other chaptered fic

It might have been fate, or it could have just been a coincidence. Either is logically possible, but Kevin isn’t really thinking about that at the moment – he can’t focus on anything, not even the bitterly cold wind that’s stinging his cheeks and making his eyes water as he sprints across the sand.

_It’s great to hear any voice again._

How can he let himself become that? Does he try and fight it? At all?

_A smile, a twitch of the wrist._

Sentient heat trapped in a temporary body gone cold. He’d rather die than become anything like _that_.

He’s been running for well over an hour, at a guess (the sun was barely slipping behind the hills when he left, and now he’s desperately stumbling through the pitch black) but the white hot pain in his muscles hasn’t quite caught up with him yet. Any other person probably would have had to stop by now, but Kevin isn’t like that. Not after what they did to him. It’s not _efficient_ to get out of breath easily, is it?

Night Vale isn’t silent in the dead of night, because nowhere is ever truly silent, but it’s close to it. As he approaches the edge of town and shoots past Larry Leyroy’s house, he catches the warbled sound of a laugh track on TV and a cat hissing defensively as the trashcans rattle in his wake. Someone is standing in the centre of the vacant lot next to the Ralph’s and their eyes follow as he sprints past, but he’s too absorbed in getting there before the tightening in his chest becomes too much to breathe with. _You can’t run forever_ , echoes Lauren as the old oak door slams on repeat in his mind. That doesn’t mean he isn’t going to try.

It doesn’t matter that he’s only ever been there once – he lets muscle memory of watching Carlos leave him behind lead him to the purple door with the chipped paint and ignores the way the lawn angrily whistles due to him waking it up. The gate lets him in without having to struggle with the latch; maybe it’s because it thinks he’s Cecil, but he knows that realistically gates are cleverer than that. _Come on_ , he wills his useless body as his legs start to falter on the way to the door. Unfortunately, he doesn’t get to actually knock or press the doorbell. Fortunately, he’s almost certain they’ll be alerted in some way by his head smacking against the wood and then knocking him out cold on the step beneath it.

***

_“...to hurt us? He doesn’t exactly... the past, does he? We can’t just...”_

Awareness is desperately trying to swim into a blurry focus. In the background there’s talking, hushed voices too soft for him to quite be able to home into them properly. Vaguely, he’s aware of the tidal wave of pain waiting just outside of the hazy bubble of unconsciousness.

_“...just leave him, Cecil? That’s not **right** and you... might have heard you, did you even...”_

Kevin tries to lift his head ever so slightly, only to signal to the voices that he’s present and awake, but the movement lets the pain leak into his chest and he immediately welcomes sleep once again.

***

The next time he wakes up, it’s properly. That doesn’t mean it takes any less than a couple of minutes to push himself up into a sitting position, but he manages to stay conscious once he’s in it so he’s counting that one as a win. Every movement causes spots to dance in front of his vision, but he just grips the edge of the couch he’s apparently seated on and lets his knuckles stay white until his vision returns. Gingerly, he lets himself take in his surroundings – the white loveseat he’s haphazardly strewn across, the little oak coffee table in front of it with mugs of half-drunk coffee and creased _SCIENCE!_ magazines, the flat screen TV paused on what looks like _The Breakfast Club_ with russian subtitles and the open screen door behind it. Nobody seems to be in the room, but Kevin is sure the voices he heard earlier weren’t in his head and if he focuses he can hear them again, so he decides to go and check in what is presumably the garden. Unfortunately, the second he puts two feet on the lilac carpet and stands, the blood rushes from his head and his knees promptly give way again. The noise that catching his elbow on the table and the pained noise that comes after it seems to catch the attention of the conversation-havers, due to the way Carlos rushes in and Cecil hesitantly follows.

“Don’t stand up again!” Carlos pleads, darting over to help him pull himself back up onto the couch. “Your body is incredibly exhausted – I don’t know what you did, but you need to _stop_ and rest before you do- well, anything else, really,” he explains, grabbing a glass of water from the coffee table and handing it to him. Cecil is still watching the two of them uneasily from by the glass doors. “What is it that you did, exactly? If you don’t mind me asking.”

“I ran from the Bluffs to here,” he croaks out, wrinkling his nose at how rusty his voice is and happily taking a long drink from the water. “What?” he asks as Carlos gapes at him, voice a little smoother now.

“That’s... that’s what, fifteen miles? How long did it take you? Did you stop?”

“I don’t really know. Less than an hour, I think. And no.”

“That’s so fascinating!” he exclaims, sitting down on the arm of the couch like he’s about to start interviewing him. From where he’s still perched by the door, Cecil pointedly clears his throat. Carlos seems to remember himself and sighs, pushing his glasses up his nose. “Oh! Right, I’m sorry. Why did you come here?”

Silence is sometimes easier left unbroken. The pause before Kevin speaks, before he’s physically able to let the words leave his mouth, is deafening. “The radio,” he whispers, so mind-blowingly loud that it nearly breaks him. “I heard you- I heard _me_.” They were expecting this, he thinks. “I can’t end up like that- I won’t. I’d rather die.”

“Why are you _here_ , then?” asks Cecil, the harshness of his words not matching the underlying fear in his tone. Despite the situation, Kevin laughs, hollow and bitter and forced.

“I can’t die. This useless old thing won’t let me,” he curses, loosely jabbing at his weak body. “I- I just hoped that you might be able to fix me. Y’know. With science.”

“Fix... fix what exactly?”

“Strex did something to me- well, they did quite a few things to me, but one of them was- oh, dear,” he sighs, sinking his head into his hands. Neither of the two men seem to know how to react to this, to even comprehend there’s more to him than the StrexCorp smiling poster boy he’s been for longer than even he can really remember. “This _thing_ in my head. It’s not- it’s not _mine_ , and it’s definitely not me but I can’t get it _out_ and- and it’s getting worse, I can feel it.” Cecil is looking at him like he doesn’t want to be hearing this. “ _I’ve drifted away from myself,_ ” he says hoarsely, because every single word his future self spoke on the radio earlier that afternoon is scorched into his mind and it won’t go away. “ _Sometimes I am one me, and then again I am the other._ ”

“ _The power of the Smiling God is an endless flow,_ ” Cecil says sadly in return, and Kevin ignores the pain spiking in his chest. “ _It ebbs, like the tides. But like the tides, it returns._ ”

“I can’t control it- it’s like it takes over my head, and then I come back and I can’t even remember that I was gone, only the gaps in my memory are getting bigger and more frequent-” he tries, cutting himself off in attempt to regain his composure. Carlos is mostly still in shock. This isn’t the Kevin from the desert otherworld. Kevin doesn’t _like_ feeling like this at all. “I’m scared that I’m going to hurt somebody – or, Gods forbid, I _have_ hurt somebody – and I won’t be able to remember.” Part of him hates this, wants to give in to whatever they put in his head and stop feeling whatever it is he’s feeling now. Another part of him wants to fight it until it’s well and truly gone and won’t ever come back so he can’t be a danger to anyone ever again, so he can spend time with his friends and his family without feeling a crushing guilt every time he closes his eyes.

All of him wishes he could die.

“Um- forgive me for asking, but how did they- uh, _give_ it to you? The personality, I mean,” Carlos asks, and for a minute the sharp pain dulls to an ache because he’s not asking Kevin to leave or even looking at him like there’s something wrong with him. He seems to be at least remotely interested in helping, and he’s even attempting to be delicate with his words, something Kevin hasn’t experienced in a very long time.

“I don’t really understand- or remember, really,” he apologises. It comes to him in little flashes when he sleeps, sometimes, but all he can really truly remember is that it hurt. “They called it conversion therapy- y’know, the electric type?”

“Electroconvulsive therapy? Yes.”

“It was that, but they’d inject me with- with _something_ in between sessions. I don’t know what it was.”

“I’ll take you to the lab tomorrow morning and do some tests to try and work out what it is, and we’ll start from there.”

Kevin wills the silence to pour through his eyes and devour him from the inside. “Thank you.”

“It’s no trouble. It’ll be quite interesting, actually.”

“No- no, I meant- never mind,” he mumbles. _Thank you for treating me like a person and not some kind of monster_ is what he’s trying to say. Carlos probably doesn’t care about him at all. Realistically, he’s doing this because it’s interesting for science. Kevin doesn’t deserve his help.

***

The other two are sat at the kitchen table with what might be wine and what smells like dark chocolate when Kevin stirs awake again. Soft, bumbling jazz music spills out from the nearest open door, the same kind of music he used to play when he’d make cookies for everyone at work. Nostalgia stings like a bittersweet taste he can’t get out of his mouth. He can’t even go into the station anymore without the world shutting down around him. From the kitchen table, he hears a glass clink against the table and a long, purposefully overdramatic sigh is let out. “I don’t trust it.”

“I know, Cece, but I really do think he needs our help.”

“I needed _his_ help when I was trying to _overthrow_ StrexCorp,” Cecil pouts, but he doesn’t actually sound all that angry.

“And you heard him on the radio today when his future self told you that it wasn’t really _him_ \- and today, too. I believe him.”

“He didn’t try and kill _you_.”

Carlos laughs at this, gently. Kevin hasn’t heard anybody laugh in so, so long, not genuinely. “No, he didn’t. He _did_ , however, spend a couple of months helping me in the desert otherworld when we were both trapped there – he’s telling the truth. There’d be these... moments, where he’d do something slightly unnerving and then just straighten up and- and _forget_. Like, completely. It never seemed to really bother him, and I didn’t keep it in mind ‘cause I was more focused on science and getting out of there and stuff, but it was happening. A couple times he’d praise that Smiling God and then get this odd look as if he wasn’t quite sure what he’d said- or he’d go out for a while and I’d ask him what he’d been doing and he never seemed to be able to remember.”

“Are you sure he wasn’t just lying?”

Kevin wants to be upset at how much Cecil distrusts him, but the only thing he can really hear is the fear resonating from his questions. The fear that Kevin caused is inducing nausea in the pit of his stomach.

“Because humans are humans and anybody can be lying at any time, I obviously cannot be one hundred percent sure, but I’m at least very sure. Back in the desert otherworld, there was this afternoon he showed up at the lab for lunch with me and Doug and Alisha and- and he was just covered in _blood_. Fresh blood, not the normal dry blood he has on his clothes, and I tested the jacket he left behind and it was _human blood_. But I asked him what he’d done and he didn’t know.” Kevin remembers this afternoon- or, at least parts of it. He remembers how scared Carlos looked when he stumbled back into the lab and he remembers not noticing the blood dripping from his hands until everyone else started staring at it. He doesn’t remember much else. “Don’t give me that look, Cece. It wasn’t an inconspicuous kind of thing, and he wasn’t trying to direct me away from the conversation or anything. He just looked really, really afraid.”

 “Afraid of what?”

The room is silent for a while. Kevin thinks his heart might burst inside his chest.

“Himself, I think.” Carlos sighs, yawning and making some stretching noises from his seat. “It’s late, do you wanna go to bed? We can talk about it more in the morning if that’s what you want.”

Only after they’ve closed the bedroom door behind them does he let himself fall back asleep.

***

Despite StrexCorp spending months attempting to engineer his body to require inhumanely minimal amounts of sleep, the calendar pinned up neatly on the fridge in the kitchen tells Kevin he’s slept for one straight day and is midway through his second night when he finally wakes up. There’s a crick in his neck from how he’s been curled up on the couch and his legs _ache_ in a way he’s never felt before, but someone took the time to lay a knitted blanket over him whilst he slept and he very much appreciates the gesture. After slowly wobbling over to the ticking coming from above the stove, the clock whispers to him that it’s three in the afternoon, so he should get outside and enjoy the sunlight whilst it lasts. It’s the dead of night outside when he looks out of the window, so he ignores the clock and instead hobbles over to the lamp beside the couch and turns it on. The soft, warm, orange glow that fills the room is much more welcoming that the searing, blinding omnipresence ever was, the coils of the universe unravelling and hollowing out _everything_ in their path-

Kevin sinks his hands into his hair and takes a deep breath, just like Vanessa taught him to do. He’s okay. He’s safe here. It’s a relative term, but he’s not going to let himself go down that path.

Instead, he lets his eyes settle on the soft lilac carpet he’s currently standing on with dirty boots, and then follows the bloody trail on the carpet to a stain so dark it looks like a pool of blood on the otherwise pristinely white couch. It’s one way to be productive, at the moment, and he thinks that’s what he needs right now. Just to stay in his own head. And it’s not like he’s a stranger to getting bloodstains out of everything – not everyone appreciates the vividness it brings to internal decor, let alone how it replaces the need for finding a good colour scheme. So he busies himself with gathering everything he needs. There’s no glycerine or steel wool in the kitchen cupboards, so he slips out of the front door to head to the Ralphs and pick up everything. After all, it’s only polite to clean the mess he made when they’re being so kind and letting him sleep on their couch. The man who works in the Ralphs jumps and makes some kind of scared noise when he appears at the checkout counter, but Kevin forces his way past it and smiles so hard it hurts and doesn’t let it drop until he leaves the shop. Ominously, the figure he ran past a few days ago in the vacant lot starts slowly floating towards him, but he knows not to make eye contact and just carries on walking with his head down. The sun is starting to rise as he makes his way back to the door, so when he whistles at the lawn it seems a lot happier to see him. Both Cecil and Carlos seem like the kind of people to be late risers so he’s not surprised when it’s still silent upon his return.

The couch is first, he decides, and he gently begins to remove the surface layer of the blood with the toothbrush and brushes it onto the carpet (he’s sure they’ll have a vacuum he can borrow somewhere.) Before he uses the glycerine, he mixes the club soda he went out for and some water and starts blotting the blood out with the undershirt he removed earlier. It’s so methodical and natural that he’s able to sink into the rhythm completely, the movements coming with ease and muscles taking over for him. It takes over an hour of spraying the glycerine-detergent-water mix and circular sponge motions for the stain to disappear completely, but it’s fun work so he barely even notices the time passing. The carpet stains are lighter but wider spread, so it takes what’s probably closer to a couple of hours to steel wool the dried blood out and then blot it all out with the ammonia solution he made over the sink. Work absorbs him so utterly that he doesn’t even notice Cecil is awake until he’s standing right in front of where he’s kneeling on the floor.

“Kevin?” he says slowly, frowning when Kevin eventually stops blotting and looks up at him. “What are you doing?”

“Stain removal,” he says cheerily, going back to blotting when Cecil doesn’t respond. “I made such an _awful_ mess when I interrupted your evening two nights ago, and it would be just plain rude to leave it there. Besides, it’s something to do.”

“You’ve slept for five nights, Kevin. Not two.”

“Oh. What a waste of time, right?”

“The stain is gone,” he points out, and Kevin realises he’s blotting clean carpet. Right. “Are you feeling okay?”

“Of course!” he says as he stands up, Cecil too focused with the way he immediately stumbles and falls backwards onto his ass to pick up on how strained his voice is becoming. “Wow! Aren’t head rushes so exciting?”

Judging from the way Cecil pinches his nose and leans against the couch instead of helping him up, he’s decidedly uncomfortable. “You don’t have to pretend to be happy around me.” The laugh that bubbles up in his throat is uncontrollable and painful at best, and it disgusts him how much it seems to _terrify_ the other man.

“No, I _really_ do,” he grins and speaks through gritted teeth. “If I don’t _force_ myself to stay happy then something else will! That is _its_ job, after all.” It’s not like he wasn’t a happy guy before- before all of _this_ , but it almost hurts to never be anything else; nobody can stay happy forever. He’s heard the story of All Smiles’ Eve many times before (it’s practically a bedtime story for Strex employees) and he’s very, very much aware that whilst the Smiling God is still aware of him or part of it is still manifesting inside his soul then he _has_ to stay happy. He has to force himself to stay happy or _it_ will force him.

The next few days pass, as all time does, and he doesn’t see much of Cecil other than during the evenings. Carlos pops in and out of the house almost constantly, usually too busy frantically searching and muttering science-sounding-mutterings under his breath to stop and talk to Kevin. When he does notice him, he smiles. It means a lot to Kevin. One time he shines some kind of weird light into the abyss of one of Kevin’s pupils and even squishes his cheeks slightly before scribbling something down onto a notepad (with a pen that notably says _ILLEGAL_ on the side in bright red lettering) and leaving again. Obviously there’s nothing stopping him from leaving the house – he’s not imprisoned, after all – but he still can’t really bring himself to do it.  Even as much as he wants to be outside, he can’t take the looks he knows he’ll get from the Night Vale citizens he nears.

He’s a monster, and he shouldn’t even _be_ here. How selfish it is of him, to surround himself with innocent people and families and _children_ when he could become a danger to them at any time.

 


	2. τῆλε πάθος

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The ever-present butterfly feeling in his stomach renounces itself and he desperately tries to crush it without turning to keep watching Carlos.   
> You can’t have him, he tells himself firmly. Stop it.

_When he awakens it’s always in the same building – a different place sometimes, sure, but always the same room. No windows, no doors, harsh blinking lights on the hospital tiles and the sharp smell of disinfectant assaulting the air. His head is pounding to the point where it’s impossible for him to sit up, but he manages to roll over from the pool of blood he’s splayed out across and start crawling towards the only doorway in the room. It might be the way out, or there might be no way out. He’s never made it out of the door. Every night he still tries to scramble towards the doorway, attempting to surpass the way his fingertips slip on the bloodied tiles and his legs are seemingly fractured beyond repair. Every night he’s stopped by the eyeless office drones with blood dripping from their smiling teeth that never quite disappear from the back of his mind. Every night it hurts more and more and **more** when their jaws extend and grab his limbs and drag him back there._

_Lauren’s there._

_Lauren’s always there._

_It’s the version of her he’d only ever catch in the corner of his eye, the peripheral Lauren that he could always see until they sewed his true eye shut. Hunched back and sunken, rotting skin with thick blood clots leaking out of the soulless pits of her eyes. She’d always smile when he was dragged headfirst towards her, bloodied slits on her cheeks opening up to reveal razor-sharp teeth that never fail to make lancinating pain shoot down his spine. Kevin’s seen her jaw extend wide enough to devour whole limbs at a time, but he knows that’s not what she’s going to do to him – she doesn’t want to kill him, only make him suffer._

_“You were such a useful asset, Kevin,” she drawls, not even blinking whilst he ferociously thrashes in the grip of the eyeless drones. “So **easy**. You’re so desperate to please that you’d really do anything we asked,” she continues, casually strolling over as he’s forced into the chair and strapped down by the eyeless drones. “And if you were hesitant- well, it was never hard to **make** you change your mind.” Both of them know exactly what she’s talking about. He hates himself for giving in to things like that, but the humiliation and the pain that came with it was unbearable, and he didn’t have anything else left other than his job. So he complied. Like a good employee. “We do not condone desertion, Kevin,” Lauren smiles, the revolting grin clashing with her ice cold tone, “but I’m sure you must know that by now.” He knows what’s coming, because it always does, but that doesn’t make him struggle any less when she slowly unsheathes the knife and stops with it a few inches away from his chest. _

_The first one is always the worst. Kevin tries to hold in the pain, biting through his lip as to not let her have the satisfaction of knowing she’s hurting him, but it never lasts. As the knife tears through his cheek and blood spills into his mouth, guttural noises of pain spill out and she just laughs._

_“I haven’t come for you yet, Kevin. But I will. Soon this will stop being a dream at all.”_

Kevin wakes up with his hair plastered to his forehead, desperately peeling away the sheet from where it’s stuck to his skin because it’s suffocating him and reaching out to flick on the lamp. Reassurance that he’s not there and he never has to go back there again. The relativity of safeness doesn’t do much to comfort him, but the guest room does at least provide him with a pillow to catch the noises of sharp breaths and harsh sobs he is unable to stop himself from letting out. Deep down he’d always known that Lauren hadn’t been killed in the rebellion – how she escaped, he wasn’t sure, but she did. These aren’t nightmares, they’re threats. Messages from her. Telling him what she’s going to do when she finally gets to him. It might not be real right now, but it will be.

He doesn’t get back to sleep.

***

Bright and early the next morning, he pads into the kitchen quietly and starts frying some bacon for when the other two get up. Cecil is still religiously afraid of wheat and wheat by-products so he has to settle with making oat pancakes instead of real ones, but they seem to turn out just fine. Distraction comes as a more healthy release than anything else he’s yet to encounter, so when Carlos tropes out of the bedroom with a light blue dressing gown and says good morning, he steps back and realises he’s gotten around to making something of a breakfast buffet.

“How long did it take you to cook all this?”

Kevin pauses, taking in the extra bacon and plates of oat pancakes along with eggs (three different ways,) sausages and baked beans. “I really cannot say,” is what he eventually settles on, laying out three plates at the table and filling his own with pancakes and eggs. “Is it okay if you start the science today?”

Carlos frowns, mouth already half full of bacon. “I think so? I mean- it would probably be beneficial for you to get some more rest-”

“Please,” he interrupts, hoping Carlos will accept that as an explanation.  Judging by the look on his face, he’s not having it.

“Kevin, if you want me to help you then you need to tell me everything. _Everything,_ ” he adds for emphasis in a very serious voice, but it’s kind of undermined by how happy he looks at the jam he’s spreading on his pancake.

“I think Lauren still has some kind of mental bond with me and she uses it to communicate with me whenever I sleep and I’m not overly fond of it.”

Carlos drops the knife into the jam jar, fumbling for a few seconds to make sure the jar didn’t then fall onto the floorboards. “What? I thought Lauren was dead? _You_ thought Lauren was dead!”

“I _hoped_ she was dead,” he corrects, “but I think I always knew she wasn’t.”

“Okay... what does she do in the dream? Like, how does she communicate with you?”

Kevin shrugs nonchalantly, sandwiching some bacon between two boiled egg halves. “She like, physically mutilates me and says ‘ _I haven’t come for you yet, Kevin, but I will and this won’t be a dream anymore.’_ ”

“ _What_?”

“Okay, I’m paraphrasing slightly- but you get the idea.”

“No- physically mutilates you? I-” he pauses and takes a deep breath, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “I’ll take you to the lab after breakfast.” Kevin counts this as a small victory, meaning he allows himself to feel happy for a few minutes. Usually his next step would be to clean the kitchen, but he apparently did that as he was cooking so he instead goes into the room they’ve allocated him and immaculately makes the bed and goes to where he always keeps the washing basket next to his bed back home. Obviously it is in fact not there, but it does make him realise that he’s still wearing Cecil’s borrowed leggings and bowling league shirt, which probably aren’t considered daytime lab clothes. Part of him feels too rude to ask for new clothes, so he settles for just going back out to Carlos and waiting to see if he makes any comments about changing clothes. He’s still eagerly tucking into his breakfast as Cecil finally trudges out of the room in only bright green boxers. Like, _really_ bright. “We have a _guest_ , Cecil! Put some clothes on,” Carlos scolds, but he’s only half paying attention with the other half engrossed in something on his phone.

“He’s my double. We have the same body,” Cecil grumbles, shuffling towards the coffee machine. Kevin stares very intensely at the incredibly interesting borrowed socks he’s wearing. Their bodies are similar, but they’re in no way identical; Cecil is an inch or so taller and has broader shoulders and a narrower waist. He’s much more legs than Kevin is, and most of his body is covered in deep purple lines of ink spiralling up and down his limbs. From the top of his neck to the very base of his ankles has intricate detail spelling out some kind of awe-striking picture. Kevin doesn’t really know what it is, but it’s amazing. “What?” Cecil grumbles, clearly put out at how Kevin’s been staring for the entire time it took him to make his coffee.

“Tattoos,” is all he manages before swallowing and pinching the inside of his wrist. “I like them, I mean. I don’t have those.”

“Huh. We’re doubles, so I would’ve thought you had some,” he hypothesises, loudly gulping most of his coffee in one. Carlos perks up his ears at this. “Mine just kind of showed up when... uh... I don’t remember, actually.”

“I do have some; you just can’t really see them. The ink is yellow.”

“Is the pattern the same?” he asks, suddenly a lot more awake and looking kind of like he’s about to bound over to him and check.

“I don’t think so, no. I asked Vanessa and she said there was a sun on my back, not an eye.” Once again, he says her name without even thinking. Neither of them asks him about her, which is a relief, even though they know. He’s not crazy, though – she’s not a hallucination. She’s real. Just a ghost, or something, some kind of spirit that doesn’t want to move on from the radio station where she was murdered. Kevin misses her, the only really real friend he’s had. She always dismissed him whenever he wasn’t being himself, but she never gave up on the real him trying to come back. StrexCorp were powerful (almost beyond belief) but they couldn’t do anything to a _ghost_ , so Lauren just had to put up with Vanessa whenever she wanted to come to the station. His chest tightens when he next breathes in, desperately trying to surpass the pit of guilt bubbling in his stomach. She can’t leave the station, obviously, but she never minded because Kevin would be there every single day and she’d get him a coffee and listen to the broadcast, dancing along to the weather with him whenever he was happy enough. Now he can’t even walk past the building, and Vanessa is all alone.

It’s only when he forcefully pulls himself out of his thoughts that he realises Carlos has been talking for presumably a while, because he finishes saying something about blood tests and asks Kevin if he’s alright with ‘all of that’. Kevin just rubs his eyes and smiles. “I’m terribly sorry but I got a bit lost during that. Would it be okay to explain it again?”

Carlos looks a bit worried but then just shrugs, accepting the coffee Cecil places down next to him and drinking it completely black. “Sure – I’m not _entirely_ sure how to approach this, so I think we’ll just start with taking some blood and trying to see firstly if there’s anything in your system, secondly what it is and thirdly how to separate it from you. Then I asked if you minded me doing some blood tests.”

“Oh, that’s more than okay. I have copious amounts of blood.”

Carlos looks as if he doesn’t know how to respond to this.

***

During the car ride to the lab, Carlos turns on some kind of radio station Kevin’s never heard before, one with only songs in a language he doesn’t speak and not much speaking at all. Carlos sings along quietly, just loud enough to pick up over the wind on the desert roads and the song itself. He has a sweet voice and it makes Kevin think of when they were out in the desert otherworld together and Kevin would catch him in his own little bubble, singing to himself quietly as he worked because he hadn’t noticed he wasn’t alone. If he ever did notice Kevin had wandered in he’d stop singing and get all flustered and would smile back when Kevin smiled first. The ever-present butterfly feeling in his stomach renounces itself and he desperately tries to crush it without turning to keep watching Carlos sing.

_You can’t have him_ , he tells himself firmly. _Stop it._

Once they get to the lab, Kevin remembers himself. Nobody shouts or throws anything at him, which means he’s already being received better than he would be anywhere else in Night Vale, but he can see it in their eyes. They’re terrified, even though he’s still wearing the borrowed pink leggings and now a bowling league sweater instead of a t-shirt – the way one of them drops a test tube and nobody attempts to clean it up because that means taking a step or two closer to him. Maybe this was a bad idea after all.

Carlos either doesn’t notice the fear hanging around in the air, or he chooses to ignore it, happily strolling in to grab a couple of notepads off of a workbench and even taking a pen from behind one of the scientists’ ears. “I need one of you to help me do some tests on Kevin.”

Nobody volunteers, unsurprisingly. After thirty or so seconds of silence, one of them clears his throat and desperately looks at everything other than Kevin. “What, uh- what does that involve?”

“Blood tests. We’re definitely looking for _something_ , I’m just not quite sure what the something is yet.”

“I will help you,” comes a voice from the nearest doorway and it’s ironic how much it makes Kevin jump. A very short (even shorter than Carlos) woman comes up to him and holds a hand out, patiently waiting for him to work out that he’s meant to shake it. “I am Nilanjana Sikdar,” she introduces in a thick accent Kevin can’t locate.  “You must be Kevin?”

“Yes! That’s me,” he hurries out, impressed by how firm her handshake is and also a little scared.

“Shall we go upstairs?” Carlos offers, casting a slightly displeased look over to the rest of the scientists before leading the other two through the doorway and up the stairwell. “This used to be my little apartment, but we decided we needed the space once Cecil and I bought a house. Take a seat on the workbench.” He does, uncertainly shifting around and trying not to look at the stark white of the surfaces. Already, he’s beginning to miss the familiarity of his dark apartment back in Desert Bluffs. “Can you roll up the sleeves of your sweater? I’ll get Nilanjana to take some blood.”

“Why me?”

“Needles scare me.”

Nilanjana rolls her eyes but seems to comply anyway, reaching out for a draw a couple of feet away and pulling out a full set of blood test equipment. “Citizens here are strange,” she explains as she attaches the squeezing-band-thing to his arm, “they need many blood tests. Always something wrong,” she explains when he raises an eyebrow and then, before he’s even realised, there’s a needle in his arm. Looking at it doesn’t scare him, nor does the blood spouting into the tube of the syringe, but the feeling of metal in his skin is scraping at memories he wasn’t sure he possessed. Primal instinct is telling him to struggle and not give in to whatever she’s trying to do to him but he’s trying to talk his body down from it as Nilanjana starts to look concerned. _She’s trying to help you_ , he mantras over and over in his head, but the- _whatever_ they put in him he can almost feel coming out, the burning pain that would circulate his body for hours until he was writhing in agony. “Are you alright? I am almost finished.”

When Kevin doesn’t respond Carlos stops whatever he’s doing on the other side of the room and hurries over, pressing his fingers against Kevin’s throat to test at his pulse. “Take deep breaths,” he’s reminded and he complies, unable to move from where his eyes have locked on the syringe until Carlos steps closer and covers his eyes with his hand. “What’s going on?”

“Memories are coming back? I- I don’t know.”

“Nils is finished now, it’s okay. I’m just going to put a little bandage over it and then you can lie down on the couch if you want.” It’s only once Carlos has secured the square of cotton to his arm and freed him of the equipment that he lets himself breathe out. “You want to talk to me about it?” he asks, lowering his voice so Nilanjana can’t hear from where she’s splitting the blood into about ten different test tubes. Kevin doesn’t want to talk about it.

“Later,” is what he instead opts for, hoping Carlos will become too distracted by science to remember to ask him once they’re home. Once they’ve taken his blood it’s a lot less hands-on than he’d kind of hoped it would be – other than the one time they dripped in a few drops of a pungent, viscous purple liquid and the test tube exploded, the liquid inside ceasing to exist – nothing much has gone on and it’s definitely been a while. Carlos is talking lots, but it’s either to Nilanjana using scientific terms he doesn’t understand or to himself in Spanish, which Kevin also doesn’t understand. In the end he wanders out of the room without either of them really noticing and decides to re-investigate downstairs, a small part of him hoping the other scientists won’t all cower away from him this time. None of them really seem to notice him over the sound of the radio (which includes two of them singing along) and the general science bustling, so he chooses the woman closest to the door to slowly approach. The back of her lab coat has about nine burn holes in varying sizes, which is probably what intrigued him, but when he actually gets close enough to see what she’s fiddling with on the workbench he realises it’s three equally sized potatoes. Kevin watches her for quite a while, though he’s not really sure what she’s doing. Eventually she pulls a fourth potato from the pocket of her lab coat and holds it out to him without looking away from the three on the workbench. Obviously he accepts the potato, but he’s so confused over her actions that it takes him a minute to realise it’s actually a burning hot potato and the skin on his hands is starting to blister. “This is a hot potato,” he announces, and it’s only then that she jumps and pays attention to him. Out of the corner of his eye he can see everyone else stopping to listen, almost as if they’re waiting for something to go wrong.

“I heated it up _yesterday_ ,” she frowns, poking at the potato that’s still scalding his skin and making some kind of angry sound when she realises it is indeed burning hot. “I _hate_ this town.” Not wanting to ruin whatever she’s attempting to achieve, he keeps a firm hold on the potato whilst she sticks a thermometer in it and starts angrily writing down thinks into a notebook with a happy-looking dinosaur drawn on the front. “Wait- isn’t that burning your skin?”

“Yep!” Kevin says brightly, voice not faltering at all. It’s not so different to how his father used to pour boiling hot caramel into his hands when he was a child – it’s nowhere near as bad, actually, and he was always made to smile through that so it’s not even hard at the moment. The woman still removes the potato and places it on a chopping board after he makes no effort to move, dragging him by the wrist to the nearest sink and letting a stream of cold water soothe the skin.

“Doesn’t it hurt?” she asks, voice a little more wary now she’s not as engrossed in the potatoes.

“Oh, not at all. What are you doing with your potatoes?”

“Being disappointed. It is physically impossible for a potato to retain heat for over twenty four hours – the skin has next to no insulating properties at _all_! Do you know how quickly it should have returned to room temperature? Do you?”

Kevin does not.

“ _Not that long_!” Kevin just blinks at her, eventually turning off the tap and patting his hands dry on the borrowed sweater. “Sorry, a lot of my science experiments generally lead to me being angry at the potatoes. I’m Lusia. You’re, um- you’re Kevin, right?”

The wobble in her tone, however slight, is painfully hard to miss. “That’s me! I’m currently the subject of one of Carlos’ _fun_ experiments, but he requires a lot less help than I’d thought, so I’m a tad bored. Do you need any help with your potatoes?”

_Sitting around wasting time is out of the question and undesirably inefficient._

No- he didn’t mean to think that. He’s going to help Lusia because her experiments look interesting and he’s bored, not because he should always be working. “I mean- if you want, that would probably be a good help. I have some potatoes growing outside that shouldn’t be growing because they’re planted in sand and I haven’t watered them – you could help me do some tests on them.” Happily, he follows her out of the front door and round the back of the lab to a patch of sand with a couple of tyres lain across it. “The ones by the tyre on the end are the ones I watered, so if you could collect a few of those and bring them over here that would be splendid.” It’s not easy work, considering how unnaturally deep she somehow buried the potatoes (and also due to the _three_ poisonous sand centipedes that all try and eat the flesh of his arms, but he manages to throw them quite far without getting bitten) but it’s not unpleasant and he’s happy to listen to her talk about how different potatoes are outside of Night Vale – in the _real_ world is how she puts it. After they’ve gathered what seems to be a sufficient amount they both turn back to the lab to see two of the scientists watching from the widow and another sticking his head out of the door. The bubbling warmth in his stomach is replaced by another pang of sadness. _You brought this on yourself. You made them scared of you._

Eventually he can’t take the eyes on his back at every move, despite how fun helping Lusia is so he gives her his number to update him on any breakthroughs and slips out without saying goodbye to Carlos. Sure, it’s his fault, but that doesn’t mean he can stand it. They probably thought he was going to try and hurt her or something.

He decides to make a nice dinner for the other two to make up for scaring their whole town.


	3. prophēteia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "This isn't a dream, Kevin. This is a prophecy. I'm going to kill you, and them and every other person who has ever tried to stand in my way."

The cooking goes very well, despite his distracted state of mind, and Carlos is so pleased that Kevin manages to steer him away from asking about his disappearance completely. It turns out Cecil had actually been home the whole time he was cooking, just napping, and had been awoken by the smell of the food. They eat without speaking, but it’s not an uncomfortable silence and the ever-present soft jazz is still spilling out from the kitchen radio. Like clockwork he automatically stands to start clearing the table, jumping slightly when Cecil gently grabs his wrist. "You made this whole meal, Kevin. You're not clearing up."

"But it's my mess?"

Cecil rolls his eyes. "Go to bed," he sighs. "And you," he accuses, turning to point at where Carlos is leaning against his own hand sleepily, "you're exhausted. Go to bed or I will make you." It's an empty threat, but Carlos happily gets up and kisses Cecil goodnight before lazily scrunching Kevin's hair (he thinks this is his version of a goodnight kiss) before making his way to their bedroom. "I won't make you go to bed, but _I'm_ cleaning up." Kevin's just about tired enough not to put more energy into arguing back, just mumbles a thank you and smiles at him as he grabs himself a glass of water and retreats into the guest room. It hadn't even been on his mind until Cecil had pointed it out, but now the tiredness is weighing his whole body down. He didn't get much sleep last night, anyways, so an early night is probably for the best. The couch bed is freshly made again with soft sheets and he instantly curls up around a pillow and lets himself drift off.

***

_Instantly, he knows something is deeply, terrifyingly wrong. He's not in the room he's always in when he opens his eyes - he's still in the guest room, only everything is slick with fresh blood and there's no moon in the sky outside. He throws himself up against the back wall and ignores the familiar feeling of blood trickling down his knock when two of the eyeless office drones enter, but they don't make any move towards him, just stand either side of the doorway. They're waiting for him, he realises, but it takes a shout coming from another room to actually get him to run past him. In the living room Cecil is sat on the couch, several claws deep in his back and head limply hanging down. The drones smile when Kevin shrieks and rushes over, desperate for any sign of life. Dry blood has stained his face in perfect tear tracks when Kevin pulls him back to look at him. Instead of life he's met with an eyeless smile, the tears in his cheeks from ear to ear having been loosely sewed up along with the rest of his mouth. His skin is still warm and Kevin feels disgustingly sick as the tears leak down his face. This is **his** fault - he lead Lauren here._

_From the other bedroom he hears Carlos shout his name and feels an all-devouring pit of fear in his stomach as his muscles kick into action subconsciously. After barely making it into the room he's already being held back by the eyeless office drones, but his mind is so numb he can barely feel their teeth digging into his arms and shoulders. Carlos is half-slumped against the wall with his wrists bound to the bedpost, weakly trying to tug away from where Lauren is standing over him. "Aren't humans **fun**?" she laughs, wiping away what looks like Carlos's blood from around her mouth. "So weak. So fragile." She fists her hand in his hair and forces him to look at her, ignorant as Kevin starts desperately struggling against the grip he's being held in. After smiling at the way Carlos is weakly thrashing in her grip she turns back to Kevin, keeping eye contact as she holds a knife up to the scientist's neck and grinning darkly as he immediately stills. "I know where you are. And you've made this game **much** more fun now you've shown me other ways I can hurt you."_

_"Leave him alone," he warns, fighting to keep the emotion out of his voice. "Just kill me instead. That's what you want, isn't it?"_

_"Where would be the fun in that?" she laughs, plunging the blade in and out of Carlos' jugular and beaming when his blood sprays over her. "This isn't a dream, Kevin. This is a prophecy. I'm going to kill you, and them and every other person who has ever tried to stand in my way. But first," she says, casually licking Carlos' blood off of her fingers as the light drains from his eyes, "I'm going to make you watch them suffer."_

***

Kevin doesn't mean to shout when he wakes up, but he can't help it- he can barely breathe, suffocated by the hold she'll have on him until he kills her- or she wins. The sobs come naturally as they do every night along with the pillow he uses to muffle his noise but that doesn't provide any relief. Who was he trying to kid? He isn't safe here and he never was; all he's done by coming here is put Cecil and Carlos in danger too, and he knows he wouldn't be able to live with himself if they were harmed in any way. As soon as he's got the violent tremors passing through his body under control then he has to leave, put himself far away from anyone and anything Lauren can hurt. Panic rushes through him in waves to the point where he's choking on his own breath, fists clenched desperately in his hair just for something to hold him on the ground.

"Kevin?" Cecil calls from outside the bedroom, knocking softly when there's no response. Kevin desperately tries to hold in the dry sobs racking his whole body, but to no avail. "I'm coming in, okay?" he says, slowly twisting the door handle. _No,_ Kevin wants to shout - Cecil shouldn't have to see him like this, _can’t_ see him like this - but the words won't come out of his mouth. Instead he settles for trying to bury his head in the pillow so he won't have to meet Cecil's eyes. "Oh, Kevin," he sighs, and Kevin feels the bed sink next to him. "Carlos told me about the dream you have, the one every night." Kevin shakes his head. He doesn't want to talk about this or even acknowledge it, because it's not a dream. It's very, very real. “Was it not that?”

There’s silence for a moment, Kevin still not in control of his breathing and refusing to uncurl from around the pillow. “Come on, breathe with me,” Cecil finally says, exaggerating his breathing so Kevin can hear it over his own sobs. After a few more seconds he feels Cecil slowly unclenching his fingers and removing them from his hair, but he doesn’t let go once Kevin relinquishes his grip. Instead he soothingly rubs his thumbs over the back of Kevin’s palms and carries on with the exaggerated breathing until Kevin has a hold of his own. It takes a while, but he doesn’t seem to become impatient or anything, just keeps breathing and murmuring encouragement until Kevin feels like he’s in control of his own body again. “Will you look at me now?” he asks softly. Avoiding eye contact, Kevin lifts his head from the pillow and decides to pointedly examine Cecil’s pajama top. “Want to tell me what happened?”

Kevin takes a deep, wobbly breath and squeezes Cecil’s hands. He doesn’t want to, but they have to know. They’ll probably want him gone once they realise how much danger he’s putting them in. “It wasn’t the normal one,” he whispers, refusing to meet Cecil’s eye. “It was here, and- and you were _dead_ on the couch and then I watched her _kill_ Carlos and I couldn’t even stop it and then she said it wasn’t a dream- it was a threat, a _prophecy_ because she knows I’m with you-”

“Kevin,” Cecil interrupts, voice firm but soft. “Remember to breathe. Don’t get yourself worked up again.”

“I- I have to leave. She’s going to come and she’ll kill you and Carlos and I would never be able to forgive myself if she did.”

Cecil stays quiet for a while, contemplatively squeezing Kevin’s hands. The silence is eating him from the inside, but he doesn’t even dare to move, not even to wipe away the tears dripping off of his chin. “Come here,” he eventually sighs, letting go of the other man’s hands to open his arms and smiling softly when Kevin just stares. “It’s okay; I just think you need a hug.” Kevin hasn’t been hugged since- he can’t even remember. Vanessa says all the time that she’d hug him if she were physically able to, but that’s all he’s really had since his mother disappeared. Hesitantly he leans into Cecil’s side and involuntarily tenses up when an arm is placed around his shoulder. It’s- it’s warm, and it’s making him feel like Cecil might actually not want him to leave. “Keep taking deep breaths,” he instructs, and that’s when Kevin gives in. He wraps himself around Cecil’s torso and just lets himself cry into the other man’s shoulder and feels _wanted_. “Sometimes all you need is a good cry, and a shoulder to cry on,” he says conversationally whilst gently rubbing Kevin’s back. “I cry all the time. I’m not one for holding in anything- I used to be, but I feel so much better now that I’m not. You shouldn’t do that either. I know you’re used to having to be happy all the time, but that isn’t healthy. It’s okay to be sad, Kevin, or angry, or scared. You’re allowed to cry or shout or express your feelings however you want. Just please tell someone if you’re not okay. It doesn’t have to be me. Come to the station and talk to Khoshekh if that’s what you want – I talk to him every day and it always makes me feel better.”

“You hugged me,” is all Kevin’s stupid mouth can find the words for.

“Indeed I did.”

“I don’t remember the last time somebody hugged me.”

“I’ll just keep hugging you then.”

“I need to go,” he insists, not moving from the way Cecil is sheltering him from the rest of the world. “I’m putting everyone in Night Vale in danger.”

“If Lauren comes, then we’ll deal with her when it happens. If you leave now then she’ll always be able to get in your head and you’ll turn into the Kevin I spoke to on the radio.” If Kevin focuses hard enough he can hear the thrumming of Cecil’s heart, the beat a soft rhythm of familiarity and warmth. “I know that you don’t want that.” Even back when he was told he had to _hate_ Cecil, a leader of the rebellion and an _enemy_ , he’d always envied his voice. This is what a radio voice should sound like; calm and soothing in a deep, smooth way. “I’m going to get you some water.” Wordlessly, Kevin lies back down onto the bed and watches Cecil bumble into the kitchen and fill up a glass by the tap. The sheets he curls himself back up in aren’t warm in the same way Cecil’s arms were. “Have a drink.”

 _Don’t say it_ , he pleads with himself. _Don’t_.

“Please don’t leave me by myself,” he hurries out, not turning to face Cecil. Hopefully he was too quiet to even be heard, because Cecil won’t want to leave his own bed and his own boyfriend just to make sure Kevin gets back to sleep. _Don’t cross lines_ , he has to remind himself.

“Okay,” Cecil says simply, sitting himself up against the wall next to where Kevin is lying and letting out a deep breath. There’s something slightly off about his being, the periodic tensing of his shoulders, but Kevin doesn’t get a chance to question him about it. “Did your mother sing you to sleep as a child?”

“Yes.”

“Mine did too. All the way up until-”

“She disappeared? Me too,” he sighs, rolling to stare at the ceiling. “She used to always sing the same song, but I always wanted to hear it. She’d stroke my hair until I fell asleep.”

Slowly, as if he’s unsure, Cecil moves and starts running his fingers through Kevin’s hair.

“Me too.”

It feels like home.

***

When Kevin wakes up with the sunset in the morning he finds his face pressed to Cecil’s bare stomach with one of the other man’s arms laying over his shoulders and fingers still tangled in his hair. Ignoring the strange feeling in his chest when he carefully wiggles free to sit up and behold his sleeping double, he yawns and quietly tiptoes out of the bedroom. Amongst all the things he’s feeling right now and despite how relieved he is that Cecil and Carlos are letting him stay, he misses home. He misses his apartment and his radio station. He misses Vanessa and he misses Abigail- no.

Don’t miss something you can’t ever get back.

The bloodstone necklace he used to keep safely hidden under his shirt was destroyed by the masked army at some point during his stay at the desert otherworld and he can feel the lightness on his chest more than ever now, the empty space where its otherworldly power is meant to be pressing into his skin. Kevin isn’t sure he’ll ever find a replacement, especially considering who it was a gift from, but he’s also sure Cecil won’t mind if he borrows the garden bloodstone circle – he just wants to breathe again. The chant comes naturally once he’s sat cross-legged in the centre of the circle, the foreign tongue flowing from his mouth as if it’s all he ever knew. She appears before he’s even finished, hovering at the same height as his head just a few feet away from him.

 _“It has been years,_ ” She emanates, voice seeping into his mind before the words leave her mouth.

“I... wasn’t myself.”

 _“You need not explain yourself to me, Kevin. I know all. I can still sense the part of you that does not belong._ ”

He doesn’t have to hide anything – it wouldn't do anything even if he wanted to.

_“Why have you summoned me here?”_

“I- I don’t know.”

_“You are afraid.”_

“Yes.”

_“What is it you are afraid of?”_

Kevin swallows, squeezing his eyes shut as if that’ll make everything go away. “You know what it is.”

She smiles, many of her eyes glittering in the desert sunrise. _“Yes, I do.”_

“Please don’t make me say it.”

The smile fades, omnipotence radiating off of Her blue skin in waves of soft white light. “ _You know what is to come, and what you must do,_ ” She begins, the pit in Kevin’s stomach squeezing tight with fear, “ _yet I have not foreseen it. You know what this must mean.”_

“Multiple outcomes,” he murmurs, more to himself than Her. “Fate has left for this to be my choice.”

 _“Correct_ ,” rumbles Her voice, and miles away Kevin hears the screen door slide open. He can’t look away now. _“It is rare that fate will leave you with such a choice. Fear is wise. Do not let it take from you what you desire most. The choice is yours. I believe you have known this all along, тыныгуу.”_

“жарыктын кудайы,” he returns with his head bowed slightly, making sure his eyes do not leave hers. She smiles again at this.

“ _I have always been fond of you, кымбаттуу бала. I must leave you now. You cannot stare upon my divine form for too long.”_ And with that, she disappears along with some of the pain that wouldn’t leave his chest up until now.

“Who’s she?” Carlos asks from where he’s still stood on the patio. “Sorry, I really didn’t intend to eavesdrop.”

“It’s quite alright,” he promises, standing and turning to look at the other man. “жарыктын кудайы – a goddess of light. We commune from time to time, as she does with many of those who are willing to summon her.”

“What language is that? What was she saying to you?”

“It’s Kyrgyz. She called me _breather_ at first; that is what we all are to ethereal beings.”

“And second? She said something else, right?”

Carlos is beginning to sound like an overexcited kid and Kevin loves it, eagerly smiling at Carlos without feeling the need to force it.  “ _кымбаттуу бала._ It means _dear child._ ” Just for good measure, he feels for the empty string he’d placed around his neck when his bloodstone had been destroyed.

The familiar weight has returned.


	4. ǣmetig

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deep down, he knows he’s getting bad again.

Kevin’s curled up on the couch with one of Carlos’ illegal books about the laws of thermodynamics when Cecil clears his throat, awkwardly shifting on his feet when Kevin looks up at him. “Did you go into the Ralphs?”

“The night I first got here I did,” he frowns, slowly folding his page and laying the book on the table when Cecil continues to look concerned. “Why?” he asks. Clearly still uncomfortable, Cecil continues to avoid his eye and shift around as Kevin grows increasingly worried. “What’s happened?”

“It’s nothing- I was just thinking that _maybe_ it might be a good idea for us to make the rest of the town aware that you aren’t here to kill them? Maybe. Just an idea.”

“Cecil. Tell me what happened.”

“Nothing _happened_ , per se.”

“Did I scare the man at the Ralphs?”

“I had to talk him out of leaving town with his family.”

Kevin closes his eyes and counts to three in his head, a technique Lauren used to make him use to make sure he stayed positive at all times. That was only needed when the then-Strex-rebels were being particularly creative in wreaking havoc, though. This is different – he’s caused this. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking. I won’t leave again other than to go to the lab.”

Suddenly, Cecil kind of lets go of the uncomfortable demeanour to adopt a much more confused one. “What?”

“People in this town are scared of me- I get it, that’s how it is at ho- in the Bluffs too. I’ll make sure I don’t scare them.”

“... _Or,_ I was thinking you could just come into the studio later today and talk on the radio. Would you mind? You wouldn't have to go into detail or anything, just maybe explain that it’s not- I mean, you aren’t like that.”

Kevin takes a minute to ponder this. He’s not sure how much of an effect it would have, but it would be nice to feel like he can go outside again. The garden at Cecil and Carlos’ is lovely but spending hours every day in there exhausts it slightly, and he’s a little tired of feeling confined, whether it’s the walls of the house or the garden fence. “You’d want me to come on your show?”

“I just think that people should know that- that you’re _you_ and not what they think you are.”

So Kevin accepts, genuinely beaming at Cecil and meaning it when Cecil half-smiles first. It’s probably a good step to being able to go back into his own station, and it would be so lovely to be able to go out into town and do menial tasks like shop for groceries or try on new clothes or give blood to appease the rumbling that threatens the very earth. Cecil assures him that he won’t have to talk about anything too difficult, or even come up with much to say because he’ll ask all the questions. Kevin wants to laugh and tell him that he doesn’t need to be asked questions, that he’s a radio host and knows exactly how to dance with words in an unspoken melody that resonates in every mind who hears. But then he thinks about his own microphone for his own show in his own studio, and his mouth dries and he remembers that maybe he can’t ever be good with words again. Maybe he shouldn’t go after all?

_And once, I was so good with words._

No. He has to go, has to prove he isn’t the soulless monster everyone believes him to be. He will _not_ let his own name become his strange figment that his tongue forgets how to form.

_He is not going to wither away._

***

Cecil sings along to stereo, just like Carlos does – except not quite like Carlos does at all. Carlos is sweet, soft tones, humming gently in places where the words won’t meet his lips. Cecil is loud passion, bassline thrumming from his heart and just shouting _noise_ when he doesn’t know the words. Eventually Kevin catches on that he actually might be trying to make Kevin happy – granted, Kevin doesn’t come to this conclusion until he’s overcome by a fit of laughter due to Cecil driving with one of his knees so he can sing along to the air guitar he’s strumming. They do end up getting pulled over by one of the sheriff’s secret police, but when they look inside all they do is air guitar back to Cecil and give Kevin a purple sticker that says **ROCK ON!** in bright yellow cursive. Towards the end of the drive, Kevin gives in to the nudges and weird noises he’s getting from Cecil and reluctantly starts singing along with him. His voice wobbles and breaks in all the wrong places yet Cecil just smiles and continues to sing as loud as he can. The warmth in his chest is back, settling reluctantly at first but becoming more and more snug.

***

He’d been _so close_.

Cecil had waited until the end of the song to park the car, waiting for Kevin to take a deep breath outside the studio doors before they walked in together. Intern Kareem seemed relatively unaffected and just said he would make an extra coffee today and that it was _so_ Cecil’s turn to feed station management (to which Cecil blew a raspberry at.) Kevin makes it into the studio okay, choosing to ignore the way his body is demanding that he leaves. He even makes it through most of the show – saying hello when Cecil introduces him and patiently listens whilst he explains what Strex did and how he isn’t himself sometimes. It’s his fault, really, because Cecil asked him to let him know any topics that Kevin didn’t want him to bring up and he forgot to mention _her._ He covered general violent activities he’d semi-willingly been involved in and the explicit details of how they came to own him in the first place and _Daniel_ but he’d forgotten to mention her. Or, he’d been too scared to even say her name. Either way, a listener’s question comes in asking what happened to her.

Kevin doesn’t even get a chance to open his mouth before she breathes herself into his head. Forcing his eyes and his _mind_ to remain wide open he tugs his hand back from where it was apparently reaching for Cecil’s throat and stumbles away from his double, who fortunately immediately senses something is wrong and announces the weather. Repeatedly his vision blurs in and out of focus, flickering into a blood red blur every few seconds. _What are you waiting for? He’s right there_ , the sweet whisper of his mind entices, thousands of sirens lulling him into pure compliance.

“ _Get out of my **head**_!” he roars, screwing his eyes shut and pushing himself into the furthest corner possible. “You need to _leave_ , Cecil, you aren’t safe here,” he urges, taking to banging his head on the wall repeatedly when all he can see is her eyes. She’s trying to see through him, he knows this, but he won’t let her.

“I can’t just leave you like this! What do you need me to do?”

“I need you to _go,_ ” he says through gritted teeth, ignoring the blood that trickles down his nape as he continues to hit his head. His vision continues to get foggier, Lauren still desperately trying to get into his head but he is _not_ going to let her, not today. Today was about proving to the rest of Night Vale that he isn’t like that and he isn’t _her_ , so he’s going to do everything he can to stop her from taking over. Unfortunately, the very day he tried to prevent their hostile takeover of his radio station and happily offered up his life for it, Lauren decided to make it a little bit harder for him to throw away his body like that. There’s the unnaturally fast healing skills, obviously (though he kind of had those anyway) but on top of that, his skin seems to transform into some kind of armour whenever his body is aware of an incoming attack. Apparently this includes from _himself_ – he can’t get really get hurt by throwing himself in front of any kind of attack unless it has an incredible amount of force and he does not possess this. So no matter how persistently he tries, he can’t hurt himself. He can’t knock himself out or amputate any of his limbs or blind himself and especially can’t kill himself.

He’s tried.

“Cecil, I need you to knock me out with that microphone- but don’t tell me when you’re going to do it,” he commands, firmly screwing his eyes shut so he won’t see it coming.

“ _What_?”

“If I’m not unconscious soon then I am going to lose control, okay? My body is protecting itself from me but if I don’t see it coming then there’s nothing it can do, so I need you to hit me with the microphone stand as hard as you can,” he instructs, forcing his voice to remain as level as possible. He needs Cecil to trust that this is a good idea.

“I- I don’t know, I don’t want to hurt you,” he frets as Kevin covers his ears as tightly as possible, screaming white noise in the back of his mind to try and cover up the chanting. “Are you sure you can’t just shut her out?”

Luckily, Kevin doesn’t catch on to Cecil’s awful lying skills until the microphone is millimetres from his skull, and by then it’s too late for his body to react.

***

_You can’t keep me in here forever. Stop delaying the inevitable._

Kevin wakes up with possibly the worst headache he’s ever had and immediately regrets attempting to sit up straight away. Instead he first adjusts to the light burning into his eyes from the afternoon sun before slowly, _slowly_ pushing himself into a sitting position. As he turns to examine the empty apartment he’s somehow ended up back inside, the icepack that had been loosely secured to his head with a kitchen towel slides off and lands in his lap. There’s a note on the coffee table in Cecil’s cursive addressed to him in big capitals, but it takes him a few more minutes before he’s actually able to lean forward and grab it. Even then it’s incredibly hard to focus on the paper but he eventually manages it.

_KEVIN._

_Sorry I hit you with the studio microphone really, really hard – if you don’t remember, you definitely asked me to. I got intern Kareem to drive you home because station management started leaking acid from under their door when I tried to walk past and leave. Carlos says that scientifically, you probably have a concussion even though you heal things weirdly fast so it’s probably best not to get up by yourself (unless you like vomiting or fainting – in that case, it’s the perfect time to go everywhere you ever wanted to go, have been before or perhaps even like the idea of.) Tonight is our Big Rico’s pizza date night, but you’ll probably burn our house down if you attempt cooking so we’ll bring you home a box (really, please don’t try and cook.) Carlos says to stay hydrated and keep a cold-pack on the lump on your skull. If you vomit on the carpet: cover your eyes, hold your breath for exactly 7.3 seconds and it will disappear. Just make sure never to think about it again. _

_-Cecil Gershwin Palmer_

The time on his phone doesn’t match the time on the clock above the stove, but this doesn’t really tell him anything – one could be true, the other could be true. Perhaps they are both true? As there is no way of knowing he just delicately lays his head back down again and curls up around the pillow embroidered with _HOME SWEET HELL_ and lovely depictions of pink petunias and hyacinths bordering the words. Kevin closes his eyes and doesn’t think of the now dusty embroidered pillows on his own couch at home, or home at all.  

When he properly wakes up next it’s due to Cecil wafting the box of takeaway pizza over his face, face loose with the kind of smile you only get from spending a whole evening eating and listening to Carlos talk. Kevin knows this because he spent months sat on the makeshift lab tables whilst Carlos ate the disgusting pasta salad and excitedly rambled about new things he’d spent the day discovering. Kevin knows this because every evening his chest would fill with pure adoration at how _passionate_ Carlos was about his scientific discoveries and how when he talked it was as if Kevin never needed to hear the voice of anyone else ever again. Kevin knows this because he still feels that dumb smile trying to shine through whenever Carlos laughs.

Kevin is in love with Carlos in the same way that Cecil is in love with Carlos. Instantaneously and so, so incredibly real.

Carlos is in love with Cecil and he will never, ever look at Kevin that way.

Knowing this, Kevin politely declines the offer to pizza and a glass of whatever and makes his way to bed. He doesn’t sleep, not really, but he breathes. At the moment that’s all he can ask for.

 

Deep down, he knows he’s getting bad again because of how the next few days pass in such an unblinking haze of times and places. In the time before Strex ruined the chemical balance in his fragile mind, days like these meant a few days off of work and surrounding himself with friends to clear his head. The higher-ups (the ones above even Lauren) never shied away from praising him for his immaculate ability to do his job; just, on the flip side, would not tolerate days off. The chemicals in Kevin’s brain stopped him from being happy sometimes, and he was okay with that. They were not, so they _fixed_ it. It didn’t stop the numb haze from settling, the forgetting to sleep or speak or eat. It just made it _productive_. The worst part is how easy they made it to slip into – fighting it takes energy he’s already severely lacking and it always seems to engulf him before he really realises what’s going on. Carlos comes home and congratulates him on speaking up about Strex on the radio show and Kevin just nods and plasters a smile across his face. What did he say? When even was the show? It doesn’t matter much as it clearly went well, but it’s still unsettling to be completely unaware it took place. Memory gaps get wider daily, going from missing a few sentences to entire hours on end, shopping trips and movies and meals that didn’t take place inside his head at all but time still took from him anyway. Thankfully Carlos seems to pick up on the fact that there’s something wrong and doesn’t mind filling him in on things he should know already, but he’s not engrossed enough to really understand. Kevin wants to reach out, to tell him he should be more concerned because last time Kevin was like this, he-

He k-


	5. vergessen

***

 

***

Kevin wakes up on the linoleum tile floor of the shared bathroom in the fetal position, drenched in blood. It’s fresh and near-warm, making the vice grip he has on the knife clutched at his chest harder to control. Part of him wants to gain full control and bring it up sharply into the heaving cavity in his chest, and part of him wants to let it go and get as far away from it as possible. Despite this he can’t even move, can’t open his eyes or uncurl his body or clamp his jaw shut to stop the hoarse, pathetic screaming he realises is coming from him. The sun is setting in soft pink hues through the bathroom window and for a minute he feels it resurface, the searing light of the unravelling of all things burning into his mind. Kevin makes pained shrieks until his throat gives out and will only permit sharp, rasping breaths, but this doesn’t make it easier to move. Slowly the blood is making its way into his eyes as it seeps into his mouth, no matter how hard he tries to spit it out. Metallic tastes are nothing new to him – it is an old custom to taste the blood of those you have killed, but he can’t take those memories resurfacing. Desperately he wills his muscles to force the blade into his throat but he can’t move; his body won’t let him. It never lets him.

“Kevin?” Carlos’ voice sounds as the front door slams shut, the wariness in his voice indicating he already knows something is very, very wrong. Hoarseness forbids him from calling out so he just stays half tucked under the sink and waits to be found. “ _Christ_ , Kevin,” Carlos swears, and Kevin hears the shedding of what is presumably a lab coat before Carlos is next to him, trying to roll him over and do what Kevin eventually realises is checking him for injuries. “Hyperventilating is cutting off the oxygen to your brain and you won’t be able to calm down until you stop. Try holding your breath for a few seconds before breathing out again- Jesus, give me the knife, okay?” he instructs, struggling to pry it from Kevin’s fingers. When Kevin doesn’t move, doesn’t even open his eyes, Carlos takes a deep breath. “Okay. You can do this, Carlos. Just another day.” Kevin wants to believe that, but he’s guessing Carlos doesn’t deal with murderers who don’t remember killing every day. “O-okay. I’m going to- to take the knife from you now,” he says, and Kevin fights himself harder to just end everything because _he_ has caused that wobble in Carlos’ voice, _he_ has instilled that fear in the otherwise fearless scientist. His useless body once again neglects to listen and eventually gives in to Carlos trying to unclench its bloodied fingers from around the handle of the knife. A crushing weight is lifted along with the knife and his joints begin to breathe, allowing him to scramble upwards in the pool of blood and push himself up against the wall farthest from the other man. His eyes finally open and he _sees_ it, the pool of blood he’d been lying in and how his skin is slick with it and how terrified Carlos looks behind the brave face he’s attempting to execute. “What happened?”

Kevin only shakes his head, pushing his hair up from where it’s plastered to his forehead and furiously still trying to catch his breath. “ _I don’t know_ ,” he chokes out.

“Amnesia? It’s been getting worse over the past few days- God, I should’ve realised. You did this in the desert otherworld too, didn’t you?” he questions. Kevin still doesn’t _know_ \- sure, he remembers waking up in the morning, as one does most mornings, but then he remembers arriving back at the lab for dinner and all this _blood_ coating him. Awareness of the gap in his memory doesn’t make it any less terrifying, because he knows that all it takes is a blink for it to go. “Breathe in for four seconds, hold it for seven and then exhale for eight. That should deactivate the hyperarousal fight-or-flight state your body is in at the moment.” He’s at such a loss of control that he just instantly complies, inhaling the instructions like fresh air and letting the words slowly bring him back down to the ground. Carlos reaches forward to comfort him and Kevin scrambles away, scraping the blood off his face with his fingernails and getting himself as far away as possible. “I’m... not going to hurt you?” he reassures, slightly confused at the sudden movement.

“ _I_ _might hurt_ _you_.”

Carlos reaches some sort of loss for words, silence scraping at Kevin’s eardrums in rhythm with the pounding of his head. Eventually he sighs, running bloodied fingers through his hair without acknowledging it, “come on. Sit in the shower and I’ll help wash the blood off.”

Instructions don’t relate to emotion. There’s no pain in simply complying.

After gentle prompting Kevin strips off his (Cecil’s) jeans and sweater, leaving on the undershirt until Carlos gives him a firm look before crawling to sit under the showerhead. The water that jets out is ice cold at first, but he doesn’t let himself flinch and he’s still shaking once it warms up. Numb skin doesn’t allow him to appreciate the fingers helping water cascade through his hair. All he can do is shut his eyes and feel absolutely nothing. Carlos scrubs at his hair for what feels like hours until he’s sudsy clean, but he can still feel the blood dripping from his fingers even after he’s completely dry. Cecil arrives at some point during the shower and doesn’t say anything to Kevin- or, if he does, Kevin doesn’t register and certainly doesn’t respond. The blood on the linoleum is a few browning streaks by the time he gets back out and it’s probably Cecil that wraps a fluffy towel around his shoulders and walks him back into his room, laying a clean set of pajamas and underwear on his bed before leaving him alone. This is when Kevin lets himself cry. Someone is dead, and it’s his fault. Again. How many times exactly this has been true he’ll probably never know, but what he does know is that the number surges well into the hundreds and maybe even further. What sickens him most is how long it was _okay_ for him, how he didn’t even try to fight back when he was told what he had to do. Being what he was – their _fixer_ is what Lauren called it, and he supposes she’d been right – was an odd job title to unofficially hold in relativity to the rest of the company. He technically wasn’t high up in terms of employee-status (and in fact, about 80% of the people he worked with that weren’t day-to-day public servicers or enforcers were his superiors) yet he was still looked at with the utmost respect.

Or, at least, he used to kid himself into thinking it was respect. Sure, some of them definitely were in awe of him and his undying dedication to the company. Everyone else was just afraid. Kevin’s not particularly tall or loud, and he definitely doesn’t have an angry looking-face. He’s slim and average-height, incredibly soft spoken and intensely smiley. Maybe that had been part of the demeanour, though? Had he really been using that to his advantage all along? If he _had_ raised his voice when it had been reasonable to, he would have gotten a reaction- so why didn’t he?

“ _-even part of our division. It’s **definitely** below our pay grade,” the voice angrily rang out as Kevin opened Justin’s office door. He paused at the sight of Justin sat at his desk surrounded by four or five extremely displeased workers. Kevin couldn’t put a name to any of the faces as they didn’t seem to be regular workers in the buildings he frequented, so instead he just slipped in and softly closed the door behind him to watch the scene unfold._

_“Are you trying to tell me you think this job is **below** you?” Justin fumed, placing down his coffee cup with a thud against the oak desk. Pissing off Justin enough to make him this visibly angry is widely regarded as a bad move by pretty much everybody who knows him. He’s quite a way over the 6 foot mark and is incredibly muscular with facial features that are able to covey extreme anger (which is exactly what they were doing whilst he stared down the employees.)_

_“We’re telling you that it isn’t our job and we don’t work for you,” one of the women spoke up. Clearly, they haven’t been around here enough to understand that you can’t speak to Justin like that and get away unscathed._

_“Yes, and **I’m** telling you that you work for StrexCorp and the company as whole needs more employees focused on this particular task until it is complete. Frankly, I don’t give two shits whether you think it’s below your pay grade or not your problem. I am making it your problem. If you think you’re being overpaid for it then I’m **sure** I can think of a way to fix that.”_

_“Is that a fucking **threat**? Because I swear on the Smiling God that I will absolutely-”_

_“I would be careful what you say next,” Kevin cut in, not needing to raise his voice to be heard. The faux-friendly soft tone sliced through the other employee’s words like shards of glass and all bickering instantly ceased, with one of the employees not being shy to take a step back from him. “We are a family business, here, so if jobs need doing then we should all be **begging** to step in and help in every way possible,” he calmly explained, slowly pacing over to the desk and ignoring the way Andrew was grinning. “Or, maybe you don’t agree? Maybe our values here at Strex are- what did you call it... **beneath** you?”_

_“A-absolutely not, sir,” the woman said, bowing her head slightly so she didn’t have to meet Kevin’s eyes. “We must have made a mistake- o-or misunderstood.”_

_“A misunderstanding?” he beamed, leaning gently against Justin’s desk after they immediately parted upon his approach. “How lovely! I assume you’re all cleared up about it now?”_

_“Completely. Thank you.” And with that, the four of them leave and refuse to look him in the face whilst he stares holes into their backs._

_“I honestly don’t know what I’d do without you, kiddo,” Justin sighed, grinning as the door swung shut. “I was **this** close to showing them what happens to people who waste my time. How the fuck do you do that?”_

_“I haven’t the foggiest,” Kevin smiled, running his fingers through his fringe and turning to face Justin. “Natural charm, I guess.”_

Maybe that’s the worst part of it all. He, a ruthless killer, terrified thousands of people and he _loved_ it. The adrenaline rush and flow of power he’d get when employees would listen and even obey no matter who he was asking. It got to a point where even Justin, his direct superior, had been afraid to say no to him. He could do _anything_.

A sharp pain in his head pulls him back into reality, back into the dark guest room where he’s curled up in a towel alone. A couple of months ago and the looks he gets from Night Vale citizens would have fuelled him to the point of being unstoppable. Now he’s just afraid to leave the house. It’s gotten better since he explained on the radio that he actually wasn’t here to hurt anyone – or, at least, people have started being less open about their fear. Car doors are still locked and parents still hold their child’s hands tighter when he walks past. Ultimately it’s actually not that much better. There’s a soft knock on his door that properly wakes him up, accompanied by Carlos’ soft voice. “Dinner is soon, Kevin,” he calls out, and Kevin thinks he hears a sigh when he doesn’t respond. Whether Carlos plans to come in or not is unclear so to be safe he starts to get dressed, stopping when the scientist knocks again. “Kevin?”

“I’m not hungry,” he forces himself to respond, ignoring the way his voice cracks with loneliness. Carlos doesn’t try again, which Kevin is thankful for, so he’s left lying in the darkness and staring at the mysterious lights in the sky through the skylight whilst the other two eat dinner. It smells amazing and his stomach rumbles angrily, but he really doesn’t want to face either of them right now. He’s already made up his mind – as soon as they’re in bed, he’s leaving. He’s going to go back home, buy some canned goods and barricade himself in his apartment. Maybe Lauren will let him die if she can’t do anything else to him. Staying isn’t worth the risk of someone else getting hurt, no matter how much the ache in his head increases when he tries to actually plan how he’s going to get there. Distantly he feels a few tears run down his face but he doesn’t bother lifting his palm to wipe it. He’s waiting for the sadness to consume his mind and swallow him whole so he won’t feel guilty for leaving.

“Kevin?” comes another knock, and it’s Cecil this time. “I have a bowl of soup for you. You don’t have to eat it, but if it’s okay I think you should try.” Kevin neglects to respond so Cecil gently opens the door, giving Kevin more than enough time to tell him that he doesn’t want the soup, that he’d rather be left alone but for some reason he doesn’t speak at all. Instead, he keeps his eyes focused on the mysterious lights and doesn’t look at Cecil as he places the bowl down on the bedside table, the headache close to splitting his skull at this point. “Kevin, you can’t blame yourself for this.”

“Can’t I?” is all he manages to say. He can and he will.

“You’re under the control of someone else! How can you-” he stops, not even allowing Kevin to turn and see what’s wrong before the lights in the room are flicked on. “Your- your eye,” he points out, and Kevin reaches to touch the point where the pain is emanating from, confused when his fingers come back slick with blood. “Um... Carlos?”

It’s only a few seconds of Kevin wiping what is now clearly trails of blood off his cheeks before Carlos rushes into the guest room, stopping before his feet touch the faux-fur rug when he catches sight of Kevin. “Oh, dear,” he frets, disappearing for a few more seconds before reappearing with a slightly dampened cloth for Kevin to hold to his forehead. “Do you know what’s wrong?”

“It’s my eye,” he groans, screwing his face up with pain as the old stitching quickly soaks the rag with blood, “it doesn’t like being sewn shut.”

“Your _eye_ is still _in there_?” Cecil abhors, touching his own in the centre of his forehead subconsciously. “I thought they’d- they’d removed it or something- masters of us all, we _must_ undo the stitching!”

“If either one of you would care to fill me in on why the eye is bleeding then I’m all ears,” Carlos frowns, grabbing the nearest shirt out of the neat pile of Kevin’s dirty clothes and holding it to his forehead.

“Strex stitched it up when they first _employed_ me,” he explains, ignoring the shudder he gets from Cecil at his choice of words. “Just- the thing is with these is that they’re sentient, in a way? It has a will of its own, and it didn’t take very kindly to being forced closed. It is still rather- rather unhappy, let’s say, about being unable to open.”

“Do you think we should open it?”

“I believe it would quite like that.”

“Okay, in that case we’ll- _no_ , Cecil, put the craft scissors _down_. Ring Dave from my phone and tell him I need him to remove some stitches at the lab as soon as scientifically possible. Kevin, I’m going to drive you to the lab and I’ll get Dave to take them out. _Safely._ ” The pain is tearing its way through his mind so he just nods, clutching the bloodied t-shirt to his eye tightly and accepting Carlos’ help in getting him to stand. His balance is wobbly at best and it’s incredibly hard to walk functionally without assistance, but Carlos doesn’t seem to mind the death grip Kevin has on his arm and just leads him to the car. Kevin doesn’t even let himself acknowledge how soft and warm the scientist’s skin is. Instead, he just sits in the backseat with Cecil and tries not to bleed on any of the upholstery. No music accompanies the journey – no noise at all other than Cecil’s awkward phonecall-abilities on the phone to whoever Dave is and the soft winds of the desert leading them out to nothingness. Driving through the desert has always been one of his favourite activities, but right now he can barely even focus on the feeling of blood-soaked clothing against his skin. The pain is _searing,_ now, cracking his mind into parts and crushing them completely. “Is this regular, then?” Carlos asks from the driver’s seat as they pull into the carpark behind the lab. Luisa is kneeling in the sand with a flashlight a few feet away, confusing bubbling into concern at the blood running down his face and the support he’s clearly relying on from Cecil to stand once he’s out of the car.

“It happens enough for me to be used to it.” It usually happens whenever he loses control completely like he did earlier, but Carlos seems to at least have a vague understanding of that.

All of a sudden blood spurts from his nose and black spots instantly dance in front of his vision, catching Cecil by surprise in such a way that Kevin unwillingly falls to his knees and is only caught just in time by his double from hitting his head on the concrete paving. “This is new?” he says thickly, spitting out the blood that spills into his mouth. “Wow, I...”

“Stay conscious, please.”

“I’ll try my very hardest, but I can’t make any promises,” he says, letting Cecil pinch the bridge of his nose in attempt to weaken the bleeding. By the time they’re inside and he’s been sat down on a workbench, Luisa has reappeared with an ice-pack and is now holding it on his nose with a very worried look on her face. They’ve been texting quite a bit, mainly about her science (although they talked a bit about serious stuff after she heard his story on the radio) but Kevin didn’t think it meant enough for her to actually harbour concern for him.

“Everyone other than Carlos needs to leave if you want me to remove these stitches,” comes a commanding voice from the doorway. “I can’t even see the guy right now. There’s a couch upstairs if you don’t want to go outside.” Cecil looks as if he’s about to protest, but he ends up begrudgingly following Luisa upstairs after Carlos gives him a look. The man, who Kevin is presuming to be Dave the scientist, stalks over and tilts Kevin’s chin up to examine the stitches, seemingly not caring when blood drips onto his lab coat. Faintly, Kevin recognises him as one of the scientists who were watching him and Luisa the day he first came to the lab. One of the ones who were too scared to get any closer to him than they already had to be. There’s still fear in the way he’s blinking too fast and keeps looking at Carlos for reassurance, but he seems to be genuinely trying to help so Kevin doesn’t speak, just fixes his eyes on the tiled walls and wills himself not to faint.

“This- this is _wire_. Like, thick garden wire, not medical stitching wire.”

“Yes,” Kevin says, flinching as Carlos wipes the surface with an anti-bacterial wipe. “They needed to make sure it couldn’t force itself open.”

This throws Dave for a few seconds as he stops in the middle of putting on some disposable gloves. “Is it... a _human_ eye?”

“Oh, no. It’s a gift from a goddess.”

“...Right. Do the eyelids work like human eyelids?”

“Yes. Mostly.”

“That’s good enough. Carlos, do we have any sterilised equipment? If not, can you sterilise some tweezers and some medical scissors?” he requests, and Carlos immediately boils the kettle and begins to search for the equipment. “Are you allergic to any of the ingredients in anaesthetic?”

“No, but it doesn’t work on me. You’ll need something about eight times the strength.”

“I don’t actually have one of those.”

“I’ll just have to go without, then.”

Dave frowns, pulling a spray bottle of thick purple liquid from one of the nearby shelves and shaking it vigorously. “You _do_ know how much this is going to hurt, right?” Almost as if he’s trying to emphasise his point, he steps forward and coats Kevin’s eye with the purple liquid. The noise he makes isn’t quite a howl, but it’s realistically quite close to one. Kevin knows how much it’s going to hurt. He just doesn’t care. After the tweezers and scissors have been sterilised, Dave instructs him to lie down with his head propped up enough so that he doesn’t start swallowing blood from his nosebleed and rolls up the sleeves of his lab coat. “Carlos, I’m going to lift the stitches from the skin slightly and then cut them. Please keep him still so I don’t accidentally stab him with anything.” Kevin’s already weak from the still ongoing bloodloss, so he’s not really convinced somebody needs to hold him down.

As soon as the first stitch is removed he changes his mind.

Carlos has a vice grip on his chin and (for lack of a better handle) his hair, but that doesn’t stop the rest of his body from spasming in pain as Dave starts to slowly remove the metal that’s held his eye stitched shut for years. The actual skin itself is feeling no pain but his _head_ is another story; pain tears through him and ruptures any coherent thought, cascading waves of relentless fury searing into his skull. “Please try and be still,” Carlos begs, tinge of desperation soaking his voice in a way that Kevin’s never heard before. “It’s nearly over, I promise.”

“Two more to go,” Dave confirms, but the light is already blinding him. It’s utterly overpowering so he gives into it before it forces him to, letting his eyes roll back into his head to make way for the true sight to resurface. As a last ditch effort of communication he grips Carlos’s wrist and squeezes it softly, an attempt to let him know that this is okay and it has to happen. Cecil’s third eye seems to be in perfect condition and he’s hinted at using it lots before but that doesn’t mean Carlos has had any exposure to that kind of thing. Judging by the way he’s frantically calling out for Cecil and squeezing Kevin’s now-limp forearms, he hasn’t. Cecil reaches the pair of them just before the last stitch is severed, fingers on his neck to check his pulse whilst assuring Carlos that this is mostly normal and Kevin is probably going to be fine (‘well, he won’t _die_. What the eye shows him will dictate whether he’s going to be fine or not’.) “Last stitch,” he hears faintly, Carlos’ hand in his hair and Cecil’s on his neck becoming distant entities on different planes to his mind as it fills with ethereal light. Just under the surface his instincts try and kick into warning, sensing that he isn’t going to enjoy what he’s about to be shown, but he’s unable to do anything but wait. The last part of metal slides out of his eyelid, the eye waiting a few seconds for the skin to heal before acknowledging its freedom.

And then, it wakes up.

Kevin feels his whole body seize up, writhing uncontrollably with pain as a _guttural_ scream is ripped from his lungs.

It doesn’t come back in parts; it’s not slow, it doesn’t gradually let him piece things together. The past six years of his hazy memory and uncontrollable actions explode inside of him and he _remembers._ Instantly, he realises he doesn’t want that at all. Attempting to force the eye shut is fruitless though, so he’s forced to just lie there, unable to stop the pained noises forcing their way out of his body. It’s too much, far too much to comprehend in one moment. _That’s the past_ , it reminds him, words burning into the parchment of his mind like an eternal fire. _This will be the present._

Kevin weakly reaches out and tightens his fist around what feels like a lab coat before he loses consciousness completely.

***

_Sepia polaroid-esque haze is all that he has to remind him that what’s unfolding in front of him isn’t happening. Or, at least, it hasn’t happened yet. It will._

_Lauren is standing above Carlos’ body, nearly mutilated beyond recognition as blood seeps into the tiled floor. It’s the building she brings to him when he sleeps, only this time all he can do is watch. Watch as she kicks Carlos with inhumane force into the nearest wall, his bones cracking as his lifeless body falls to the ground like a tattered ragdoll. Cecil sobs from where he’s chained to the wall, too broken to even look at Lauren as she gleefully approaches him. Kevin turns away for what feels like hours until she leaves the room, not wanting to witness whatever she did- no, **will** do to him. The life has already left his eyes by the time Kevin faces him again, but he cannot focus on that right now. The clock on the wall says 03:47 and time in prophecies like this is unfairly limited, so he needs to find out everything he can before it disappears. Like- why isn’t he here? He should be able to see himself, but future-Kevin doesn’t seem to be anywhere nearby. He’s definitely alive, because he’s not powerful enough to see into a future that extends beyond his lifetime, so where is he? Why isn’t he here for Cecil, for Carlos? Why couldn’t he save them?_


	6. angelos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You cannot change your past. I know that, as do most. Those who try only immerse themselves further in their regrets, and those are the beings that make it truly impossible to move on. I do not encourage you to try and forget th0se things that keep you awake at night, but you must find a way to come to terms with them.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi. this chapter very explicitly talks about rape and emotions linked to it as well as the science behind tonic immobility. if you don't want to read it, skip to the end for a chapter summary.

Awareness doesn’t approach him slowly. It injects itself into his veins, forcing him into a sitting position before he’s really even awake. There are still the remnants of that pain in his head, but the eye is closed again for the time being, so he’s at least able to look around. He’s still in the lab, except the couch is now his makeshift fold-out bed and there are a few random wires and tubes stuck in his arms. Cecil and Carlos need to be warned about what he saw.

What he forgets is how he can’t ever look them in the eyes again. The things he’s done in his past have been excusable up until now because he couldn’t remember _anything_ , and you can’t really punish someone for something they weren’t aware of ever doing. Now he knows, and it’s so disgusting that he can’t ever comprehend looking at them again. No, he has to go. _Now_. Without thinking he tears the various tubes out of his arms and forces his stiff legs to accept the weight when he stands. He’s no longer wearing a shirt (and he subsequently realises this is due to the tubes in his ribcage, which he also forcefully removes) but he doesn’t have time to try and find one. He has shoes and jeans that don’t belong to him and he starts running, the familiar rush of blood around his body welcoming the movement. Carlos is sat downstairs with what looks like blood samples, but he doesn’t notice Kevin until it’s too late. He’s already out of the door. Kevin doesn’t look back, because he _can’t_ , but he thinks Carlos follows him until he gets too exhausted as the shouting stops eventually, Kevin ignoring the desperation in the scientist’s voice as he begs him to come back and continuing to run. To get to Desert Bluffs he’d need to turn around and go around town, but he can’t do that. All he can do is keep running forward, throwing himself into the burning heat as his feet get messier and messier in the dunes of sand. If it was night, he knows he could have run farther, but the dehydration sets in before exhaustion knows his name and eventually he falls and can’t get back up. His skin won’t burn, as nobody’s skin does in the Bluffs, but the sun is still an excruciating heat on his bare torso. Death begins to greet him in waves as consciousness slips from his hands once more. Aloud, he says thank you to Carlos, and Cecil, and Vanessa.

He also says sorry.

***

Upsettingly, he wakes up somewhere that really doesn’t _seem_ like he ended up dying after all. There _is_ an angel stood by the foot of the bed he’s been tucked into, but that doesn’t really mean much – and besides, it’s not like Heaven is where he’s going when he dies. Eternal torture sounds a lot more realistic. All of the lives he’s taken deserve their revenge.

“Cool. You’re awake,” rumbles the angel in an unnecessarily bored tone as they continue to flick through the desert vogue magazine on their lap. “You’ve been out for like, ages. Not sure why you thought that was a good idea,” they patronise, handing him a glass of water when he doesn’t fathom a response. “I told Josie that you probably had a death wish, but she was all _noo, that doesn’t mean we can just leave him, Erika._ So now you’re here.” Kevin tries to speak, but his throat just scratches like sandpaper and all that really happens is air passing through his lips. A notepad that was definitely not there when he awoke is now sat nicely on the comforter he’s been tucked in with. Sure, he didn’t see it physically manifest there, but it wasn’t there and now it is, so he’s calling magic. “Write on that. I can’t be bothered to lip read.” Kevin frowns but complies anyway, scribbling a couple of questions onto the lined paper before passing it to the angel. “Okay...” they nod, pulling out some reading glasses from nothing and putting them on. “Yeah, you’re still in Night Vale. This is Old Woman Josie’s house. No, I don’t think anyone else knows you’re here. And you’ve been sleeping for a few days now. You woke up a couple times to drink and piss, but you weren’t _awake_ , just conscious.” Kevin nods slowly, taking a minute to comprehend this. “You want to talk to Josie? She’s making some tea.” When he nods again Erika stands and reaches out to give him a hand in standing up again. He’s definitely still weak and wobbly on his feet, but he seems to manage alone after a minute or so. He’s currently in a pair of frilly pajama shorts and a Night Vale opera t-shirt that just makes him think of Cecil and Carlos – no. Not anymore. Kevin is going to politely ask to borrow the t-shirt (because he doesn’t have one) and keep the pajama shorts (because he really likes them) and then he needs to leave before he’s noticed.

After following Erika into what seems to be an open-plan kitchen he’s greeted with the sight of _another_ angel sat around the table with an elderly black lady, pouring her a cup of tea. “Good afternoon, Kevin,” she says warmly, gesturing to the chair across from her, “do have some tea. It’s my favourite strain.” Part of him wants to decline the tea and just _go_ , but this woman took him from the desert and had angels nurse him back to health, so it’s only polite to sit down and accept. On the pad of paper he asks her what type of tea it is, because he’s quite picky when it comes to tea. “This? This is ginkgo biloba with root ginger and cinnamon, my dear. It’ll do wonders for healing that throat of yours.” Admittedly he’s never actually heard of ginkgo biloba, but the tangy-sweet smell he could smell even from upstairs is very enticing so he’s more than happy to give it a try. The four of them sit in silence for the duration of the tea-drinking, the angels playing a game of invisible chess to pass the time as Kevin stares out into her back garden and the empty desert that beckons behind it. As soon as his teacup is empty (Josie was right about it helping his throat – he can already feel the soft sweetness seeping into where pain once lived) he flips back to the original page of questions he left the angel, crossing out all but one and patiently waiting for Josie to acknowledge he’s holding it up. Eventually, one of the angels reads it out to her because her old eyes just won’t focus on the letters. “Thank you, Erika dear. No, Kevin, I haven’t let anyone know that you’re here. As much as it upsets me to keep this from Cecil, I did not want to make a decision for you that you weren’t ready to make.” Kevin just looks at her, black eyes full of questions he can’t use his voice to ask. “You left because your past caught up to you and you don’t think they will be able to accept what you’ve done.”

“ _What_?” he manages to choke out, voice barely audible but still enough to convey his shock.

“I see most things, Kevin. I have been part of Night Vale for a very long time, and it is in turn now a part of me. That’s how we found you out in the desert. The Erikas sensed you needed help.”

_what should i do now?_

“I can’t make that choice for you, my dear. I won’t stop you if you still want to leave. The least I will ask of you is that you contact Cecil and let him know that you’re okay. I think,” she sighs, finishing the remains of her tea. “What do I think? Ah- I think you owe them that, if you really must leave.”

_i can’t stay they’ll never forgive me for everything i did_

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she scoffs. “Erika, honey, please pass the biscuit tin. Cecil can be close-minded sometimes, I’ll admit, and Carlos can sometimes fail to show emotion in the place of science, but they are both good boys at heart. It isn’t as if none of us knew some of the things you’ve done for that wretched company, anyway.”

_the building collapse. millie-jane’s birthday_

Josie sighs again, more distant and slightly more defeated. “I always had my suspicions about that. I suppose you feel like you have to tell them then, hm?”

Kevin nods. It is truly the worst thing he has ever done. Josie seems like she understands. “Even in my wise old age I can’t tell you how they’ll react, but if you really do plan on telling them I admire that.” Josie uses the table to help her stand, taking slow steps towards the soft grass and lowering herself down into the lonely deck chair in the centre of the garden before patting the grass next to her as if to beckon him. Kevin’s still at something of a loss for words so he just follows, placing himself next to her cross legged on the soft grass. “You cannot change your past. I know that, as do most. Those who try only immerse themselves further in their regrets, and those are the beings that make it truly impossible to move on. I do not encourage you to try and forget th0se things that keep you awake at night, but you must find a way to come to terms with them.”

Letting this information properly sink in, Kevin leans back until the grass tickles the back of his neck and relaxes into the ground. If he runs again, he’s going to end up like the _him_ he heard on the radio a month or so ago. _Withered away by what they did to me all those years ago_. Kevin is not going to wither away. He refuses. Carlos will carry on with the science; either it will work, or it won’t. Presuming the latter is the eventuality that surfaces, he’ll just find somebody willing to end his life and the sweet release of death will be welcomed. To die as himself instead of whatever he will become would be an overwhelming relief.

“Have you decided what you want to do?”

Kevin wants to stay, he thinks. Whether he can face Cecil and Carlos yet is another story, but he will face them soon. He writes this train of thought down on the notepad and hands it to one of the Erikas, who had also taken it upon themselves to sit on the grass with him and reads it out to Josie.

“Okay. I’ll text Cecil and tell him you’re okay, just you want a few days by yourself. Is that alright, honey?” she asks, smiling when he nods. “Now, remember Cecil has something of a mind of his own, so there’s a chance he’ll show up here anyway. Are you prepared for that?”

He’s not, but he nods anyway.

 

Cecil being Cecil, this is exactly what happens. Kevin is reclined in the same position on the grass, basking in the sunlight when he hears the doorbell right seven or eight times. He doesn’t turn his head or open his eyes. Instead, he waits, swallows down the lump in his throat and listens to Cecil try and burst into the house. Josie is out grocery shopping with one of the Erikas, but there’s one watering the flowers at the end of the garden and another that’s clearly just answered the door because somebody had to let Cecil in.

“Kevin?”

Kevin sits up, and then stands up to meet Cecil’s eyes. He gives Kevin a once-over, checking for any visible injuries but clearly hesitant to approach. “Hi,” Kevin tries to say, voice only really giving a small croak of a word.

“You’re alright?”

Kevin nods. He takes a step closer to where Cecil is still standing by the kitchen door, and his double seems to take that as an invitation to comically bound forward and tackle him in some kind of hug. Kevin doesn’t really know how to react to any sort of well-meaning physical embrace, but it does feel- it just feels _nice_. Comfort is probably what he’s feeling right now, so he reciprocates by awkwardly patting Cecil’s shoulders until he moves away again. “What happened?”

“My memories came back,” he whispers.

“Oh,” is all Cecil says. “Do you want to come back home?”

“Yes,” is all Kevin says. He doesn’t mention how he probably won’t be welcome there for much longer.

***

_“Is this really our last opportunity?” he finally mustered the courage to speak up as one of the board members waved a pointer at the building plan. To him, they are nameless and will forever remain nameless – he doesn’t need to know their names to work for them. Officially, he’s not even here. This is a board meeting on how to handle the rising group of rebels in the Bluffs, and Kevin definitely isn’t a board member. What he **is** , is their fixer, and so he will fix for them what he is asked to. _

_“Yes. Our inside information sources tell us such an opportunity will not rise again until the day they attempt to overthrow us,” the one with the pointer rumbled, blood oozing excitedly out of his empty eyes. “Of course, they could never succeed.”_

_“A revolution would just be bad publicity,” another man sighed, turning to lazily smile at Kevin. “I’m sure you understand what you are required to do for us.”_

_“I do, sir.”_

_“Excellent. You will have a limited amount of time before the building is set to collapse, but I’ve heard that you excel at being efficient, so that shouldn’t be an issue. Can you carry out our request?”_

_“No sir, it won’t be an issue. Am I escorting their family members out or is someone else?”_

_Surprisingly, the four men laughed at this. “There will be no survivors, my dear boy. This tragic building collapse will not spare the innocent.”_

_Kevin’s smile faltered ever so slightly, though he was careful not to let it slip completely. “But- I mean, are there not children expected to be present? It is one of their b-”_

_“Collateral damage;” he interrupted, eyes narrowing slightly, “we are only doing what must be done to protect the safety of this company and the town it represents.”_

_“You’re saying that **innocent children** are collateral damage?” _

_As soon as the words had left his mouth he knew he had made a mistake. The laughter ceased immediately, four heads turning to face him in perfect time. “The greater good is worth whatever amount of collateral damage that we deem **necessary**. Are you trying to tell us that we’re wrong?” he demanded, quiet voice carrying suffocating power into the room. The three who are sitting stood up, towering over him as he quickly shook his head. “I will ask you again. **Can you do your job?** ”_

_“I- I don’t- innocent children, I-”_

_It seemed impossible for everything to move faster than is comprehendible at the same time as flowing in slow motion, yet that is how it felt. Before he could even begin to understand what was happening, one of the board members had yanked him out of his seat by the scruff of his neck and slammed his head against the table with a grip leaving no room for movement. “You **will** do this. No matter how many times we have to ask.” Kevin’s voice remained caught in his throat, unable to even shout when one of them tears at his trousers. His arms flailed violently at the three surrounding him until they were caught and twisted up behind his back, leaving him completely unable to even turn around. _

_This was when his body shut down._

_Everything numbed. In the back of his mind he was very, very aware of the blood trickling down the backs of his legs and the sharp pain in his shoulders and thighs from the position he’d been forced into, but no matter how hard he willed his body it would not fight back. Nothing was obstructing his mouth yet no sound came out when he tried to cry out for them to stop or for someone else to help him._

_“ **You deserve this.** ”_

_The words only brushed against his ear in a slight, soft whisper, and somehow they sourced pain more excruciating than anything he’s ever felt before._

_It was not over quickly. How much time actually passed Kevin was unable to say, but it felt like hours with his eyes focused squarely on the polished wooden surface, able to close only to let the tears pool at his cheeks. When they leave, he thinks they tell him where he’ll need to be the morning of the building accident before turning off the lights and leaving him in the dark alone. After he manages to stand up and fix his clothing, he does not go to work like he is meant to. He does not text Vanessa to tell her of his absence, nor does he go home. Kevin curls up under the board room table and lets his mind crumble to pieces. Who knew it was this easy to make him give in?_

_Two days later, he walks into that building with a knife in each hand and slaughters every single person inside on the day of a daughter’s thirteenth birthday._

 

Cecil had been comfortingly patting his shoulder when he’d started to tell the story of the building collapse in the Bluffs, but now he looks afraid to even touch his double. Kevin can’t bring himself to look at Carlos. Not even when he clears his throat and finally says something, not with how distant he’s forcing his voice to sound.

“Why are you telling us this?”

Kevin swallows, forcing down the lump in his chest and trying very hard not to let them know how much this is affecting him. “You both know that I’ve done awful things in the past, but it didn’t really matter that much to me or you because I couldn’t remember what they were. Now I remember everything I did.”

“Why _this_? Why did you have to tell us this?” Carlos asks, voice breaking slightly. Kevin doesn’t give in, he won’t. _He is not going to cry_.

“This is the worst thing that I have ever done.”

Silence spills into his ears; soft, slow and utterly suffocating. He wills it to swallow him whole.

“Are you okay?”

Kevin’s head shoots up from where he’d had it bowed toward the ground, desperately searching Cecil’s face for any kind of fear or anger. Only concern is visible, and this is when Kevin starts to cry.

“Why are you asking me that? I- I killed people’s families- _innocent_ families! I killed their _children_. I killed a thirteen year old girl on her _birthday_ in front of her friends- I don’t _deserve_ to be asked that!”

“Do you regret it?”

“Of _course_ I regret it but that doesn’t just-”

“With Strex out of your head, would you do it? If they came back, would you do it again?”

“ _Cecil_ ,” Carlos tries to say, but Kevin still answers.

“I would never hurt an innocent child ever, ever again. They could r- they could do _that_ to me every day for as long as I lived and I would _never_.”

There’s another long pause, equally as empty but somehow it’s now easier for him to breathe.

“I believe you.”

Kevin places the glass of water he was handed earlier onto the table in front of him, buries his face in his arms and _sobs_. Letting go is a relief, even more so when Cecil moves to sit next to him on the couch and rubs his back comfortingly. Cecil has accepted him after all of that, even after hearing everything and he isn’t asking Kevin to leave and it’s one of the best feelings ever.

Carlos gets up and leaves the apartment and everything good crumbles around him.

“It’s fine, he just needs a moment to adjust,” Cecil assures him, but Kevin can hear the doubt lacing his words. “I should probably follow him, actually – will you be okay?”

No. Absolutely not.

“Yeah, go after him. I understand,” he says, brushing off any lingering concern with a bright smile. He’s gotten very good at faking those.

***

Kevin doesn’t come out of the guest room when Cecil brings Carlos home, nor does he come out when he’s called for dinner. Everybody goes to bed, as everybody does most nights, and the hole in his chest threatens to destroy him from the inside out. He wasn’t engineered to have to feel like this. Nothing was _ever_ going to happen between him and Carlos, regardless of whether Carlos can or can’t stand to be near him because of what he did. It doesn’t matter what Kevin’s been feeling since they met, or what he thought Carlos might have been feeling in the desert otherworld – there is nothing between them. There never can be and there never will be. He repeats this to himself until it’s the only thing in his head, the weight of the words dragging it down to hit the pillow and stare up at the patchy lilac flowers spotted over the cream ceiling.

After he’s certain Carlos and Cecil have gone to bed, he stops forcing himself to try and sleep and just gets up, making his way to the kitchen to eat some of the leftover chicken and crouton salad they’ve left out for him. Despite how fond he used to be of a double sunrise that allowed him to work for two days straight, the cool night air comes as a gentle breath of relief as he slides silently out of the sliding glass doors. Sounds of the darkness hum together in orchestral symphonies; crickets chirping sweetly along with distant lone cars and the omnipresence of an ever-rumbling earth waiting to swallow its contents whole. If he climbs onto the top of the wall at the bottom of the garden and peers into the distance, he can see the faint glow of Desert Bluffs. It’s not as bright as it was and it won’t ever be that bright again, but it is healing. A broken town slowly stitching itself back together. Time doesn’t heal. It passes, and welcomes those who choose to heal with it.

“It’s called tonic immobility,” says Carlos from behind him, not quite managing a smile when Kevin jumps and nearly falls headfirst off of the mossy wall. What he does manage is to make his way over and climb up the wall to sit a foot or two away from Kevin to join him at watching the soft orange glow in the distance. “Your amygdala – a part of your brain’s fear structure that helps formulate immediate response in fight of flight responses – detects potential attack and inhibits movement to prime the body on whether it will be escaping or fighting back, but sometimes it’s possible for the fear circuitry to release so much epinephrine or cortisol that the surge of chemicals rapidly impairs the prefrontal cortex. Tonic immobility involves the initial freeze, but it’s then followed by temporary paralysis caused by fear.” Kevin turns to look at him, but the other man keeps his eyes fixed on the desert horizon. “When you were telling us that- that story, I could hear how much you blamed yourself for what they did to you.”

“I didn’t fight back,” he insists, voice hollow with the emptiness of his chest.

“You couldn’t. The reaction your body had to the utter loss of control and attack made you scientifically unable to fight back.”

Kevin swallows, letting his eyes fall closed as a deep breath fills his lungs. “Are you sure?”

“A scientist is always right.” Technically, Kevin knows this is completely true, but there’s still a feeling in his chest that he thinks won’t ever sit quite right again. He wants to ask why Carlos is telling him this, why he’s even in the garden and speaking to him in the first place, but he’s too scared to shatter the air of calm they’re sharing, doesn’t want to scare Carlos into going back inside and never speaking to him again. After what feels like an eternity, Carlos drops his head to stare at the sand beyond them and lets a deep sigh leave his chest. “I’m sorry I walked out on you earlier. I know it’s the opposite of what you needed, and you were just as scared as I was so I don’t have an excuse.” There are more words floating around him, struggling to be released from his throat so he waits for Carlos to find them. “What you did _terrifies_ me,” is what he eventually comes out with, voice thick with an unfamiliar emotion, “but I don’t believe that you are that person anymore.”

For the first time today, Kevin breathes out. Properly.

“I want to do everything I can to stop that part of you taking over, and I need you to know that.” Soft wind gently brushes his back, warming him from the inside out as he finally lets himself relax. “Cecil’s still awake. Come inside and watch a movie with us?”

Kevin is still at a loss for words, but he still manages to tumble down the back of the wall and land on his feet in the garden as Carlos climbs down a lot more safely. Acceptance isn’t an experience he can say has happened to him often – no matter how hard he wanted it to be, a good appraisal wasn’t the same – but it’s filling him from the knees up and he _smiles_. A real smile, nothing awkward or forced or painful. He is happy, and not because he has to be. Cecil is indeed curled up on the couch when the two of them come back inside, but Kevin isn’t so sure how awake he actually is. Somehow he ends up in the middle, too hyperaware of the way Carlos’ thigh is pressed against his own as his head rests on the arm of the sofa to actually take in whatever trash Cecil has picked to watch. Happiness is glowing, yet it is bittersweet. It’s only when Cecil shifts and his head falls onto Kevin’s shoulder that his stomach drops completely.

He and Cecil are _doubles_ ; they’re similar in looks and in the way they can’t help bottling up their feelings and in how they will both love Carlos until their inevitable deaths. Kevin knows this. What he realised more recently was that whilst they may be doubles, they’re not the same at all; how identical their looks are neither one will truly be able to comprehend as they must _never_ catch sight of themselves in a mirror, but the list of non-physical differences goes on for miles and the way they clash makes as much sense as them fitting together perfectly-

It doesn’t matter. They have accepted the darkest part of him that he has to offer, but they won’t ever accept him in the way they’ve accepted each other, the way he wants them to have him.

Kevin squares his eyes onto the documentary channel, and doesn’t think about Carlos’ thigh against his or Cecil’s head on his shoulder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kevin runs until he collapses in the desert and is found by old woman josie. the angels nurse him until he wakes up and he talks about his past with her, revealing he was behind the incident at the abandoned warehouse a few years ago. cecil and carlos learn that kevin was forced into ambushing a 13 year old girl's birthday party and murdering everyone present as they were all strex rebels. carlos is upset by this and leaves, so kevin stays in his room until they've gone to bed and goes to sit outside. carlos comes and tells him he can't blame himself for not fighting back and he's sorry he ran out. they all watch a movie on the couch.


	7. restaurare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When they arrive, Kevin remembers why leaving was so easy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kevin is sad. suicide ment i think

Luisa is a good friend because she doesn’t ask him why he doesn’t want to talk about things. She doesn’t mind when he subtly or even bluntly changes the direction of conversation, and if Kevin politely announces that he’d rather listen then she’ll happily explain whatever scientific experiment she’s conducting, or something she’s done in the past, or even just a vague concept that interests her between 3:18am and 4:57am when she’s watching the mysterious lights in the sky.

Luisa is also a good friend because on the rare occasions where he _does_ want to talk about things, she will listen. Science, even if only for a moment, becomes less important and she gives him her full, undivided attention. Often, she has no advice to offer, because scientists other than Carlos and Rachelle are, scientifically averagely, very poor at coping with their own issues as well as other people’s. Kevin doesn’t mind this, though. She listens. That’s all he asks for.

Today is one of the second kinds of days. Carlos asked Kevin to come to the lab for a hair sample, but he didn’t really feel like walking home alone so he decided to help Luisa set up her new potato farm experiment in the patch of desert behind the lab and just listen to her gush about her science for a while. They take a break, complete with homemade lemonade with absolutely no sugar (not a favourite of Kevin’s but he’s hardly going to decline a homemade drink) and Luisa moves them to the shade before pushing up her two pairs of sunglasses onto her head. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Kevin sucks on an ice cube for a few more seconds, debating possible sentence starters in his head and then crushing it between his teeth. “I think so.” So Luisa removes all three pairs of sunglasses from her face, crosses her legs and turns to face him. Kevin doesn’t tell her about the building collapse, or Strex, or anything specific at all. What he does tell her is how he misses his home but feels as if he’s the reason for its disrepair, so he doesn’t deserve to return. It shouldn’t be his to call home anymore if he was part of the force that made it crumble.

“I’ve never been. What’s it like now that company are gone, then?”

“Blood rain is sadly less frequent, but a lot of the buildings are kind of falling apart so it’s all a bit leaky still. I think they’d probably be quite easy to fix, but there’s stuff like rubble and human remnants inside so nobody really wants to stomach going inside.”

Luisa scratches her chin thoughtfully. “You like human remnants, don’t you?”

“I think they have a certain charm when it comes to interior design, indeed.”

“Why don’t you start the clean-up, then? I think that could fix lots of things.”

Surprisingly, this simple idea had not crossed through Kevin’s mind. “...how so?”

“Well for starters, it’d help with the all-round issue of shit in buildings, obviously,” she begins and Kevin nods, because _obviously_ , “but I think it would help with the stuff that’s in your head too. Like, you think you don’t deserve to go back – this could be your way of making it up to them. Earning your home back or whatever you want to call it. I don’t know how people there feel about you-”

“This may shock you, but not so great.”

“ _But,_ this might help their perspective of you as well. You can apologise and grovel all you want, but this would be clear action. This would show them you actually meant it.” Kevin nods slowly. This is actually sounding like quite a good idea. Part of him is annoyed for not thinking of it first. “And besides, once you get all the like, fingers and eyeballs and shit out of there, people might step in and start helping you too.”

“I like that idea.”

“Fuck, I’ll even help you once you’ve gotten the dead people bits out of there. I’ve not got much to do until the potatoes all grow, and if my experiment works right that’s gonna be at least a month away.”

“It’s a plan, then!” he beams, smile faltering a little when she holds out her fist sideways in the air. “What?”

“A fistbump? Do they not have those here?”

Kevin hesitantly bumps their fists, and she seems to be happy enough with that. She also offers him some of her pasta salad, which he does politely decline because the mere thought of pasta salad physically disgusts him, but she also says he’s welcome to the illegal tuna and sweetcorn sandwich she has in the fridge upstairs as long as he hides whilst he eats it. When he lets himself back inside the lab, nobody jumps and only two of the scientists look remotely nervous. Being gotten used to is probably the best he can ask for, but he’s happy enough. The tuna sandwich in the fridge upstairs is in a black tupperware container that says in white marker _NO WHEAT OR WHEAT BY-PRODUCTS CONTAINED AS THAT WOULD BE SOOOO ILLEGAL_ , and Kevin makes sure to hide his face behind the fridge door whilst he eats it.

“ _KEVIN_?” Carlos shouts out of the window down where Luisa has given up on the juice and is now eating a whole lemon.

“Yes?” Kevin replies, giggling when Carlos jumps and swivels around to face him comically fast.

“Nils and I have made a sort-of breakthrough! It’s not complete yet, but you must celebrate the small victories in scientific study or there would rarely be any victories at all.”

“That sounds... exhilarating,” he decides, discretely placing the other sandwich half back into its inconspicuous box and closing the fridge. “What did you find?”

“We have discovered what the chemical in your blood is. Well. We have discovered most of it. Come,” she beckons him over to the array of about 30 test tubes.

“I cross-referenced all known chemical combinations that harbour some kind of mentally-incapacitating effects with substances that we were aware of being in your blood, and that narrowed it down to about eighty different well-known chemicals. _Then_ ,” Carlos grins, sounding very proud of himself and forcing Kevin to lose focus for a second, “we started reacting them with certain compounds and ruling out theories based on what it did and didn’t react with. The base of the chemical in your blood is scopolamine; in concentrated doses it incapacitates you to the point where you’re ridiculously susceptible to suggestion and essentially have little to no free will and also accounts for the memory loss after it seems to hit. However. Scopolamine stays in your system for hours at most. It does not bond with your blood, nor does it continue to re-affect your brain or body. Whoever engineered this drug used the electricity passing through your system to react your blood with the drug, meaning it probably has a very low yet specific branch of reactivity. Anything too reactive would have reacted with the water or oxygen in your blood and caused a minor explosion, but this has just _melded_ completely into your red blood cells without causing any other physical damage to your circulatory system. This makes things more difficult as there is not a plant-based drug out there that will react and bond with blood but then won’t displace the blood with water or oxygen – it means somebody has created this from scratch in a lab to suit this purpose. It’s not impossible to work out the contents, because scientifically very few things are impossible, but it isn’t easy. What we’re in the process of doing now is trying to find something that will displace the drug from your body and then pass through after the drug has left your system, leaving your blood completely clean. Oh! That reminds me. Can we have some more blood, please?”

Carlos is remarkably disheartened when Kevin just sticks the needle in his wrist to start filling up the bloodbag, but he much prefers to be the one putting the needle in. He helps Nilanjana separate the blood into individual test tubes and is about to start adding an exciting-smelling neon green juice into one of them when Carlos stops him. “Cecil wanted me to tell you to go home.”

“Why? Is he alright?”

“The actual text reads: ‘I need Kevin to come and alleviate my boredom, dear Carlos. It’s an incredibly important emergency, so make sure he hurries.’ Feel free to take that as a grain of salt. He’ll only sulk for about twenty minutes if you don’t go and see him.”

“No, I really don’t mind; it sounds exciting! Can I borrow your car?”

“Uh. Yeah? Don’t let Cecil drive it, though.”

It’s been a while since he drove by himself, or really even drove at all – Desert Bluffs is a small town, and he loved to walk around so despite his ownership of a car there was never really need to drive it. Lauren would always insist on driving whenever the two of them came to check up on Night Vale, and he was never really keen to argue. As much as he’s fond of walking, however, driving is also a very peaceful activity and he’s becoming fonder of those. When he pulls into the driveway, Cecil is sat on the front steps in pink denim overalls and rubber gloves, lazily resting a shovel on his knees. “Come on! You’re going to need to put on some work clothes.”

“Is that your work outfit?” he asks, obviously indicating to the pink ensemble. “I _love_ it.”

“These old things? These are just my everyday gardening overalls. Ooh! I have an orange pair I bought when we were painting the house if you want to borrow them?”

“Um... sounds great!” he decides, letting himself be lead back inside and towards Cecil’s wardrobe. “Why is it that I need to be wearing work overalls?”

“I sent out mass text about my boredom and Luisa said we were helping you clean up Desert Bluffs.”

Kevin pauses midway through removing his sweater, speaking through the soft wool. “What?”

“I know, you’re right – I _do_ hate that town. _But_ , then she told me why we were cleaning it and I _guess_ it’s not that bad of an idea. I’ve already cleaned the whole house anyway, so there’s not much else to do.” Cecil wants to help him fix things? “I’m saying this now, though: there’s no _way_ I am cleaning up any fingers or teeth or what have you.”

Kevin laughs, letting it crush any fear he has about returning publically to give help that might not even be wanted. 

***

When they arrive, Kevin remembers why leaving was so easy.

Night Vale may have recovered from joyously throwing StrexCorp out of their town, but Desert Bluffs _was_ StrexCorp. When the company was dissembled, the town collapsed. Everyone’s favourite local store is still running, but nobody remembers what it was called before it was the CornerStrex, so there’s just black smudge where the name is supposed to be. Besides, very few people can afford to shop for things anyway, so the owner Tommy is giving away most of his stock for free. People aren’t starving, because weekly stock refills of random assorted food will still appear on the roof of Tommy’s apartment whether he leaves money on top of the empty crate or not, but the mysterious force has stopped sending everybody’s favourite foods due to its lack of payment. Nobody is _happy_ , and it’s conflicting because despite how much Kevin may miss living in the happiest town on Earth, he knows that it’s better this way. Desert Bluffs _will_ recover from this. It might just take a little time.

Since there’s no local council, sheriff’s secret police force or even a sheriff, there’s not really a figure of authority to approach on trying to help – the vague yet menacing government agency is still in town, but they like to pretend you can’t see them whenever they’re spoken to or acknowledged, so there’s not much point in asking them.  The City Hall is definitely in the worst state, but it’s also not in a current state of intense need so they decide against going there. The only person who Kevin knows won’t either run screaming from him or attempt to throw him out is Grandma Josephine. Cecil and Luisa happily wait outside whilst he pays her a visit and a heartfelt conversation that absolutely does _not_ involve any crying on his side, and not only does she promise to let people know he’s doing his best to help, but she also gives them the perfect starting location.

The school.

Desert Bluffs Cacti Elementary is still standing, but Kevin still has to throw himself at one of the side doors with extreme force to get the chair barricade to crumble and let them in. Danny Forts the disposal man is in extreme debt to Luisa for ‘scientific reasons’ and therefore happily loaned them a skip that he promised to later empty into the screaming void on exit 66 just off of route 800 where most non-recyclable rubbish is disposed off. The silence that weaves itself inbetween the three is not an uncomfortable one; if anything, it feels needed. When Luisa starts vomiting into her rubbish bag, Cecil makes an awkward phonecall to Danny again asking for a human waste skip as the bodies they’ve found are past ever being remotely identifiable. Kevin’s the only one who can stomach the smell of the rotting flesh so it’s just him taking out what was probably once a small group of fourth graders and parts of their teacher. He bears it. It’s what he needs to do to help his home, so he’ll do it. He’d do anything.

Once the room is empty of any human waste and the windows have had a chance to let in some air, Cecil joins him in clearing up ceiling tiles and broken desks. “Are you okay?”

“Hm? Oh, I’m fine,” Kevin responds absentmindedly, forcefully shredding a laminated re-education poster that’s instructing him to think deeply about the meadows. “I’ve seen worse.” _I’ve caused worse_ is what he doesn’t say.

“I’m glad you’re letting us help you,” is what Cecil finally responds with, dancing out of the room with a full rubbish bag before Kevin has the chance to ask what that really meant.

Hours of arduous labour passes with the workload eased slightly by a couple of Erikas and Luisa’s portable potato radio and miraculously, they’ve finished clearing things out before the sun sets. They’ll definitely need another day to patch up things and then maybe another for some redecorating, but then the kids can come back to school again. Kevin is debating whether to stay overnight whilst Cecil is planning to leave to go and take Carlos home, but then Carlos somehow one-ups them and shows up just before Cecil is about to depart along with Nilanjana, Dave and the rest of his scientists. Apparently, during one of the _many_ breaks Luisa took from shifting the rubble she found the time to drop Carlos a text about being a little short-handed. This is- well, ideal, really. The scientists will be able to fund the local inn by staying for a few nights and if they all work super hard (Kevin is good at this) then they might be able to clear up even more than just the school. Constant guilt that’s plagued him since the end of Strex is slowly lifting; he’s finally _allowing_ it to lift. Realistically, he doubts all of it will ever truly go away, but this is a start. A start to him being able to move on from what they did to him and his beautiful town.

That doesn’t mean he can look Luisa in the eyes when he’s asking her to come over and sleep on his couch because he’s too scared to go back there alone. In all truth, he isn’t really prepared to share this part of him with her because he knows _exactly_ what kind of dark state his apartment is in, but Carlos and Cecil seemed rather excited by the prospect of a hotel night together and he didn’t want to get in the way of that.

Kevin isn’t a part of that, remember?

Neither of them feel the need to speak on the walk back; she’s too busy taking in the collapsing town around her, and he’s too busy staring at the bloodied cracks in the sidewalk to avoid seeing the people watching him in fear from their windows. This may be his home, but he no longer belongs here. Destruction surrounds them, more subtle in the way it seeps through cracks in buildings and eyes of residents, and he was one of the sole causes of it. Maybe it really is impossible to truly wash the blood from his hands? When he closes his eyes he can still feel the blood drenching his skin, impossible to keep a hold on anything around him as he’s _drowning_ in the thick-

“Kevin?” says Luisa, appearing a few steps in front of him as he opens his eyes. “You stopped?”

“Oh, right,” he frowns, shaking his head to pull himself out of the nightmare. “Yeah, this is me. Um,” he starts, swallowing and smiling weakly whilst Luisa waits patiently for him to speak, “it’s in a bit of a state. I- I wasn’t really in a great place when I left.”

“I understand. Don’t worry, I’m super tired so I’ll probably pass out pretty quick.” Kevin trusts that this is true, but that doesn’t stop the pit of dread whirlpooling in his stomach as the bloodlock reluctantly lets them in and he leads Luisa to his third floor apartment. Before he left to find Carlos and Cecil, he’d avoided stepping outside other than to shop for a few straight months. Kevin is Kevin, so it wasn’t messy in an unclean kind of way – when he’s anxious and needs something to focus on, he cleans. Technically, it’s spotless, even the decorative blood having been scrubbed off the beige walls just for _something_ to keep him occupied. This doesn’t hide the fact that the blinds have been duct-taped shut to avoid anything or anyone seeping through the windows. It doesn’t change the collection of knives lined up one of the living room walls, cleaned and polished to a sharp perfection but still dripping with blood every time he catches sight of them. It doesn’t change how many bolts there are on his front door, or hide the sleep-deprived desperate scrawls that cover his bedroom walls. Despite this, he still feels it polite to offer Luisa the bed and have him take the couch, even though he knows he won’t be able to sleep in that god-forsaken living room. After Luisa thanks him and shuts the bedroom door behind her he leaves and takes the fire escape up to the roof to watch the lights in the sky pass overhead. He does not pretend to sleep. Once this is all over, _if_ it’s ever over, he will not be able to live in this apartment any longer. Nobody will buy it, and he doubts anyone will ever live here again if they know who lived here before them, but that doesn’t matter.

Nausea bubbles at the back of his throat. This is his _home_ , his beautiful town – Kevin’s lived here since he was born and grew up thinking he’d never dream of leaving the joyous Desert Bluffs, because why would anyone?

Part of him knows that the Desert Bluffs that once was will never return. It is gone, dead along with the many businesses and residents Strex took in its wake.

Kevin does not go to sleep.

Over the next few days he refrains from speaking to Carlos or Cecil or really everyone he can subtly avoid without it being awkward (so he shares a few brief words with Luisa in the mornings and says goodnight when she goes to bed and he doesn’t sleep) and just keeps working. At the moment, nothing matters to him more than this: rebuilding the town he helped destroy. Most of the scientists are painting the school whilst Cecil and Carlos help Grandma Josephina patch up the holes in her roof. Nilanjana is the only person who refuses to let him work alone, but he doesn’t mind that. She doesn’t speak much, and when she does it’s clear she doesn’t expect anything in return. Mostly they clear the debris from the park and picnic fields in a warm silence, and Kevin’s guilt refuses to take breaks from work when she does.  It’s only on the fourth day, when they’ve almost finished removing the bodies from the abandoned houses in the Edge of Town Development that the consistent lack of sleep begins to register rather suddenly. He’s so tired it’s almost funny when his knees give way mid-movement and he smacks his head on the marble mantelpiece above the fire. His body seems to be too tired to keep up, as the gash on his head doesn’t stop bleeding as quickly as it usually would – it takes Nilanjana holding a baby-wipe up to it and scolding him in a well-meaning way for it to eventually scab over. He’s more than happy to keep working, but of _course_ Nilanjana feels the need to call Carlos and let him kn0w, and the pair of them are over in the house before Kevin even has a chance to stand back up.

Carlos does what seem like basic medical tests which include shining a torch in his eye, taking his temperature and hitting his bent knee gently with the corner of his phone and then frowns at him in a way that makes you feel instantly awful for whatever you did to make him pull that sad, worried face. “Have you been sleeping?”

“In a manner of speaking, yes. I’ve been sleeping my whole life.”

“I’ll rephrase – when did you _last_ sleep?”

“Time isn’t even real so the bare concept of that question is relatively difficult to comprehend-”

“ _Kevin_ ,” Cecil cuts in with the stern voice he uses for telling off the houseplants.

“At your house,” Kevin admits, finding the time to focus on the wonderful detail in the carpet instead of acknowledging their concern (he’s always been a sucker for paisley.)

“ ** _Kevin_** ,” they both say, so he reluctantly looks up at them.

“What? My couch isn’t that comfortable.”

“You have a _bed_.”

“Luisa is sleeping in the bed.”

“Why doesn’t Luisa stay in the hotel with the rest of us?”

“Because I can’t be alone in my apartment,” he spits out, and this time he is going to refuse to meet their eyes. He doesn’t want sympathy or even empathy. He just wants to fix his town.

“Why?”

“I don’t know, okay? I wouldn't leave it for months after I came back from the Desert Otherworld but now going back just-”

“Do you want to stay in our hotel room tonight?” Carlos cuts in softly, squeezing Kevin’s shoulder softly when he lets out a sigh of relief and nods. “You and Luisa can have our bed and we can stay at your apartment.”

“Oh- no, I can’t kick you out of your hotel room! That’s not fair. I’ll be fine, it’s only a few more days. Maybe Luisa will let me share my bed?”

“Kevin,” Cecil sighs, accompanied by an over-dramatic eye-roll. “We don’t mind.”

Of course. They didn’t mean they wanted to share _with_ him. Why would they?

In the end, they give in to his refusal of the swap as long as he agrees to go and take a nap on the couch of the house he’s almost finished cleaning. For the next few days, that’s the pattern he works through: sleeping on random objects or floors through the day and working quietly through the night. When he sleeps, he’s back in their apartment back at home and sharing their bed with them, him and Cecil pressed either side of Carlos. His perfect curls are unbelievably soft as Kevin draws his fingers through them, breath warm on his neck in little puffs of sleep. If he reaches out he can brush his fingers against Cecil’s cheekbone, face half-buried in the crook of the other man’s neck. Sun cascades through the slats by the window and rests warmly across the three of them and Kevin has never felt more at peace.

When he’s awake, he does not think about Cecil or Carlos. He does not think about how the two of them are perfectly happy without him and how it will _always_ be that way.


	8. frēo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “This,” Carlos grins, waving one of the test tubes in their face, “is your blood. Just your blood."

On the night of the fourth day (it’s just him here, tonight – Cecil and Carlos went back along with the scientists for work) he’s on a jog around the town because he couldn’t stand being inside for any longer when a pang of shock in his chest makes him realise he’s ended up adjacent to the radio station. It’s not the state of bloodied mess on the outside that Lauren had left it in, but whether that’s due to people clearing it up or just time passing isn’t clear. During the time of his absence, someone blacked out the windows but he can still see a faint light inside from the staff break room. After a few minutes he manages to cross the road but his legs freeze as soon as he’s face to face with the door. Deep down he knows he’s going to go inside, because he has to – as far as he’s aware, Vanessa is still in there, and he owes it to her to go in there – but that doesn’t make it any easier. The bloodlock on the door has been rather smashed but the damage seems to have been ineffective as it eagerly lets him in, door swinging open excitedly before he can pull his fingers back. The noise of the metal lock clicking open clearly alerts the rest of the building, sensory lights flickering on after months of no use and some kind of mug smashing in the break room.

“ _Go away!_ ” Vanessa shrieks, and the door slams behind him threateningly. “ _We’re closed. Nobody is here.”_

“Vanessa?” he whispers, throat too dry to raise his voice. “I- It’s me.” Hesitantly he takes a few more steps closer to the break room, jumping slightly when she shoots around the corner armed with what looks like the smashed handle of a mug. As soon as she focuses on him her expression changes completely, but she doesn’t drop her weapon.

“Are- I thought you were dead? Are you dead?”

“No, I’m alive. And I- I’m me, I’m not him- the _other_ me, I mean.”

“The _StrexCorp_ you?”

“I’m myself right now, I promise.”

Vanessa drops the mug handle and lets her feet drop to the floor, but she doesn’t look at ease as she leads him into the break room. “Where were you?”

Kevin takes a deep breath. “I got trapped in the Desert Otherworld for a- a while, with Carlos.”

“I am aware. Your broadcast came through to here- I remember when Carlos left and you carried on for a bit but then you left. You stopped broadcasting and I thought you were gone.”

“I came back home.”

“Why didn’t you come back?” she asks, but Kevin can hear what she means in the undertone of her voice. _Why did you leave me by myself?_

“I wanted to- really, I did. I just-” he pauses, takes another deep breath and methodically clenches his fists. He knows he needs to be honest. It’s what she deserves. “I got home and I saw what they did to everyone- what _I_ did to everyone and I just couldn’t. I helped destroy this town and everybody here knows it. I left every few weeks to get food and stuff but otherwise I just kind of locked myself inside.” Vanessa doesn’t speak, but the anger etched into her faint features eases into worry as he continues to explain. “Then I heard – I don’t know if you listen to Cecil’s broadcast or not, but I did – I heard myself on the radio. A _future_ me.”

“I stumbled across the Night Vale radio a month after your disappearance. Cecil’s voice kept me company when you were not on the air, and very much so after you disappeared. I heard that broadcast, a triptych of your personality split over the oppressive waves of time. Mixed feelings swum through my mind, for surely if this future you were to speak it would mean the present you still lived. However, I imagined the you that became after StrexCorp took our beautiful radio station and I knew that you didn’t wish to live so I forced the thoughts from my head.”

“I ran. I knew I couldn’t let myself become that withered empty body.” He stops for a second to smile at her sadly, a gesture she unquestioningly returns. “I went to Night Vale, like we always talked about. It really is beautiful. I wish I could take you.”

“What’s it like?”

Kevin goes on to describe the strange, bloodless town and its inhabitants, along with the reason he went there in the first place. He talks about Luisa and her potato science, and the tests on him and the third eye opening. With prompting, he talks about the memories that returns and even manages to look her in the eyes whilst describing the building collapse and the events that lead up to it. She doesn’t ask or prompt more about any of the details he chooses to give. Kevin has missed her dreadfully. When he’s finished, she reaches out and squeezes his hand – obviously, all he can feel is a feather-light weight around his fingers, but he squeezes back all the same. In turn, he listens to her speak about Lauren visiting the station soon after he disappeared in search for him, and even the angels popping by occasionally to ensure no former Strex employees had come in.

“There’s something else on your mind, isn’t there? You can keep it from me if that’s what you want – after all, we are all keepers of our own secrets and must choose whether we wish to set them free.”

“I- I’m having a bit of a- um.”

Vanessa gasps excitedly, letting go of his hand to squeeze his face (which again, feels more like a light breeze.) “I knew it! Ever since you started that radio I could _hear_ it in your voice. You have feelings for Carlos, don’t you?”

“It- it’s a little more complicated than that,” he sighs, but he can’t help giggling at how happy she seems. “Carlos has Cecil, obviously.”

“Oh, right. I did forget about that. It’s a small factor, surely – how hard could it be to push them apart? Don’t give me that look. It’s just a suggestion.”

“That’s actually the _more_ complicated part- yeah, even more complicated than the whole Carlos-being-in-a-loving-relationship part. I’ve spent a few months with both of them in a proximity that hasn’t been _overly_ close but still quite-”

“ _Both_ of them?” Vanessa squeals, excitedly trying to drum her feet on the floor when Kevin’s face gives it away. This is the first time he’s openly acknowledged it to _anyone_ , even to himself about having feelings for Cecil too. “Oh, this is _perfect_! You’d all be so cute together.”

“They don’t want me, though. They have each other and they’re perfectly happy without me.”

“Well, have you spoken to them about it? I didn’t think so. That’s the only way you’ll know.”

“I at least want to finish this whole science thing before I do anything- okay, _fine_. But after,” he promises as she pulls a face, harbouring absolutely no intention of ever bringing it up. He thinks that she knows this, but despite that fact he happily sits with her until the sun rises chatting about the two of them and pretending to be annoyed when she’s excited. Kevin doesn’t realise how long he’s been there until his phone ringing pulls him out of the conversation, Cecil concernedly wondering where he’s wandered off to. By the time he’s finished assuring him, Cecil announces he’s standing outside of the station and would quite like to come inside. Vanessa assures him that she would _love_ to meet Cecil, so he invites him in. As soon as he enters Vanessa bounds to hug him, nearly passing through him in her excitement.

“Oh! You must be Vanessa! I’ve heard so much about you, it’s an absolute delight to meet you,” he smiles, patting her back politely as she continues to hug him. “I’m Cecil, Kevin’s double.”

“Yes, I’ve also just heard _great_ things about you,” she grins, blissfully ignoring the way Kevin goes an off shade of pink (thankfully, Cecil is too focused on the ghost hugging him to notice.) “We’ve just been catching up all night, really. Thank you for all the help you’ve been giving Kevin and for helping him clean up our town. It doesn’t make much difference to me because I can’t actually leave the building, but the sentiment is there.”

“It is no problem! Maybe Desert Bluffs will honour our help and change their dreadful name – may I suggest Night Vale #2?”

“No you may not.”

“Excellent,” he nods, turning to Kevin to avoid the slight glare from Vanessa, “Carlos thinks he’s made a breakthrough with his science. He said to ‘get you immediately’ because it’s ‘of extreme scientific importance’ and he also ‘doesn’t like standing around lots.”

“What? He’s worked out how to get that stuff out of my blood?” Kevin jumps out of his chair, Vanessa’s slight anger at Cecil morphing into a wide grin to mirror his own.

“I ‘believe so’,” continues Cecil, shoving his hands behind his back after accidentally mock-quoting his own words. “Should we go back to the lab?”

Kevin looked over to Vanessa hesitantly, but she’s already happily nodding in approval. “Go! What are you waiting for?”

“You’re sure you don’t mind being left alone?”

“You’ll come and visit again, right? Then I’ll be fine!”

This time she refrains against trying to make physical contact with him, but instead smiles warmly and even sees them out of the door. The drive home is quiet with Kevin diving his hand in and out of the window, too nervous and excited to even register the butterflies when Cecil squeezes his knee comfortingly. Today could be _it_ – his head will once again become his own and he will be free. Before he even realises he’s already in the lab, following Cecil upstairs numbly to meet Nilanjana and Carlos standing over a table with two test tubes.

“This,” Carlos grins, waving one of the test tubes in their face, “is your blood. _Just_ your blood. _This_ ,” he adds, waving the other test tube with a viscous clear liquid, “is what used to be part of it. I essentially crafted a drug from acetylsalicylic acid and some... other stuff... but anyway! The point is that if I inject this into your bloodstream it will displace the scopolamine-esque drug and remain for long enough for it to pass into your liver where it will be broken down.”

Carlos’ smile wavers slightly and Kevin sighs, raking fingers through his hair. “What’s the catch?”

“How do you- doesn’t matter. I can’t be scientifically certain until I actually inject it into you, but I can say with at least seventy four point eight two percent probability that this will hurt you.”

“Will it kill me?”

“Almost definitely not. The fact that I’m still not entirely sure what we’re working with means it’s impossible to be _sure_ , but I am indefinitely certain – around ninety eight point zero one percent certain. I just want you to know there are risks and that if you don’t want to go through with this it’s okay.”

Kevin would rather die than live to become what he heard on the radio months ago. Admittedly, he doesn’t overly wish to die as much as he did, but he’d still take it here over growing into _that_. This would be a death surrounded by two men he was very fond of. “I’ll do it. Tell me what I need to do.”

Wordlessly, Nilanjana tapes a pulse monitor to his neck and plugs it into her laptop, familiar rhythmic beeping filling the room in time with the thumping in his chest. After a quiet request, she smiles comfortingly and switches the lab radio to a soft bumbling jazz before sticking a couch pillow under his head. According to previous experiments, the whole process is going to take about half an hour, the most dangerous part occurring at the very end when their homemade chemical will supposedly disintegrate due to prolonged oxygen exposure in his blood, leaving it clean. Nilanjana injects it into the veins in his elbow and Kevin doesn’t think about needles at all. A burning sensation shoots through his body instantly; however, whilst unpleasant, it’s only a slight pain and it’s easily managed. Especially since Carlos is talking rapidly about how acetylsalicylic acid actually works and why you should never take an aspirin if you’re bleeding. Kevin’s under strict instruction not to get up so unfortunately he’s unable to join Carlos as he jazzes around the room, eventually pulling Nilanjana into reluctantly joining his awkward footed dance.

The worst part about it is how fast everything happens.

One minute he’s giggling at how much smoother Nils is able to move than Carlos and another he’s blinking black spots out of his vision as the screen on her laptop starts to flash red. By the time Carlos has rushed over to check the pulse on his neck, he’s losing the ability to clench his cold fingers into a fist. “Nils, call Cecil,” Carlos instructs, burying his hands in his hair in desperation. “ _I don’t know what’s wrong_!”

“It’s okay,” Kevin sighs, reaching over to Carlos and letting the other man release his hair to firmly grasp his hand. “It doesn’t even... hurt.” The beeping is slowing continually as Kevin tries to squeeze the scientist’s hand. It doesn’t hurt and Carlos is now kneeling by his side holding his hand. What a beautiful way to die.

“I’m- this is my _fault_ , Kevin, I-” he chokes out, and Kevin realises with a soft pang that there are tears rolling down his cheeks.

“No,” Kevin whispers, shuddering in a breath and turning to face Carlos. “I knew the... the risks. This is okay.”

“This isn’t _okay_!”

“This is how I wanted to go.” Carlos seems at a loss for words, tears still streaming down his face as he tightly grips Kevin’s hand. "As me. Just me." The periods of time between the opening and closing of his eyes are elongating as his head begins to fuzz. Time and its limitations are oppressive, but Kevin is thankful it has allowed him to live to this point. He has made it past StrexCorp and he is going to die next to the man he loves.

“ _I love you_ ,” Kevin breathes, the air leaving his lungs as words he’s never quite been sure how to form.

Soft jazz music is still filling his ears as he closes his eyes for the last time.


	9. kheiral

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I promise I’ll try harder to stay dead next time,” he solemnly swears, laughter spilling out when Carlos hits out at him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no offense there's smut in this chapter. if you want to skip it then read until it starts and then go to the next chapter

Kevin wakes up with a gasp exactly seventeen minutes after his heart stopped beating. Cecil is there when he wakes, instantly dropping the mug of hot cocoa in his hands when Kevin sits up and displaces the sheet that’s been places over his head. His double is smothering him with a hug before he’s even able to catch his breath. He’s _alive_.

“What?” he coughs out. “I- I can’t remember what happened.”

“You _died_ , Kevin! Your heart stopped because the chemical- I don’t know, it’s not important. You died for fifteen minutes and I didn’t even get to say _goodbye-_ ”

“I’m alive, though. So now you can just say hello, right?”

Cecil laughs weakly from where his face is still buried in Kevin’s chest and mutters a _hello_. Kevin feels slightly lightheaded when he tries to stand, but with Cecil’s help he manages to slowly make it down the stairs. Memories of faint jazz is all his brain will provide him with when he tries to recall the time after Nilanjana injected him with Carlos’ concoction. The lab downstairs is empty other than Nilanjana being curled up on the floor with an old-looking boarder collier who bounds over to him and Cecil and almost knocks him over. Nilanjana shakes his hand rather professionally and congratulates him on still being alive, her relieved smile betraying the professional demeanour as she tries to tug her dog away from Cecil (Kevin learns that the dog is called Aditya and that he is an incredibly good boy.) Together they follow Aditya outside and around the potato farm to where Carlos is sat facing the sun as it sinks from the centre of the sky, knees hugged close to his chest. Cecil smiles a smile Kevin can’t quite read and nudges him towards Carlos, hanging behind with Nilanjana and kneeling down to pet Aditya. It’s still a slightly wobbly walk in the sand over toward the scientist but he makes it, clearing his throat when he’s less than a foot away. Carlos moves slowly at first but jumps up once he realises it’s Kevin, holding him by his shoulders to carefully inspect his face.

“The chemical I made damaged the valves in your heart which fatally slowed your blood flow. I- I waited for you to come back and you just _didn’t_. You- you should be brain dead!”

“I promise I’ll try harder to stay dead next time,” he solemnly swears, laughter spilling out when Carlos hits out at him.

“I hate you. Come upstairs, I need to check your blood.” Kevin happily obliges, following Carlos upstairs and feeling even more lightheaded when Carlos gets Nilanjana to draw a final syringe of blood (she promises it’s the last one) and squirt it into a test tube. “Sorry about the pockmark scars all over your arms now. I’m sure you’ll forgive me, though, because – not to toot my own horn or anything – but I think we’ve done it.”

Kevin is at a genuine, rare loss for words. For the first time in _years_ he’s completely and utterly his own self. He is _free._ No more of Lauren trying to burrow behind his eyes or ill-consented appraisal to that _fucking Smiling God._ It’s like there’s a void in his head where something resided for so long it began to feel like home. Now there’s an empty space in the corner of his mind, cold out of misuse for so long and incredibly foreign. Kevin has never felt better. Mentally, at least; physically, he faints the second he tries to stand up.

***

Somehow, he’s ended up back in his guest room bed by the time he re-awakens, but the door is ajar and a soft summer breeze is making its way in from an open back door. Kevin feels – well, he feels a lot of things, both currently and all times – at _peace_. His mind is really and truly empty of all thoughts and feelings other than his own. He is empty, and it is incredible.

Getting up takes a few minutes of just mental preparation and is incredibly slow, but eventually he manages to hoist himself up with the door handle and stagger out of the room over to the couch, which becomes his new method of support. There’s a small tupperware box of fake-spaghetti on the kitchen bench, so it’s clearly past dinner time, but the sun still hasn’t fully disappeared into the sandy horizons when he looks out of the kitchen window. Carlos and Cecil are sat side by side on the garden decking, close but not quite touching. Kevin is about to knock to make himself known, but he catches the tone of Carlos’ voice through the open window and he momentarily pauses. It’s very clearly a private conversation, so it’s probably best just to take the fake-spaghetti back to his room and give them no indication that he’s there. Only, the problem with this is that once he’s overly certain it’s a private conversation, he feels an uncomfortable urge to listen in.

“...doesn’t even remember saying it. What am I supposed to do? How do I even bring that up in conversation?”

“I think it’s quite simple, really-”

“And what about _you_? I love _you,_ Cecil.”

“Oh, Carlos,” Cecil sighs, reclining back on his elbows and staring up at the watercolour hues of the desert skyline, “my perfect scientist. I know you do. No matter what you choose to do, I will always devote myself to you. But I can’t make this decision for you.”

“Christ, I don’t _know_. I don’t even know how Kevin feels!”

Wait, what? The fork that had been mid-stir in the fake-spaghetti clatters to the floor, with Kevin then knocking his head on an open cupboard door in attempt to catch it and subsequently losing his balance. Cecil’s back inside immediately, brandishing a half-empty wine bottle as some sort of weapon before relaxing when he sees Kevin gracefully sprawled on the kitchen tile. “I am completely fine,” he insists, accepting a hand up after his head spins too much to pull himself up. “I’m just a rather clumsy guy.”

“Um. Would you mind if we talked to you? Like, just for a few minutes. Or whatever. Maybe not.”

“That’s fine, Cecil. What’s up?” Kevin frowns as he’s lead into the garden still clutching the fork. Strangely, Carlos seems to have trouble meeting his eyes after he’s seated in between where the two had been sat before his arrival. Unfortunately, he tries to ask what they were talking about at the same time as when Cecil begins to speak, so they descend into a solid minute of ‘ _you talk **no you talk it’s okay** no really go on you talk **no you** no you were speaking first anyway **no i actually think you were**_ ’ until Carlos eventually interrupts.

“I’ll talk first, how’s that?” he suggests, both of them instantly ceasing their talking. A strange feeling bubbles in Kevin’s stomach when Cecil reaches around him and rubs his boyfriend’s shoulder comfortingly. “Um. I had a, uh, whole kind of speech planned – I’ve had one for a while, actually – but I can’t really remember it. Right. I’ve never really been good at describing feelings, I’m only good at describing facts, and love, love isn’t a fact. You know? Love, it’s like a hunch at first and then later it’s a series of decisions, a lifetime of decisions. I guess what I’m trying to say- I’m not quite sure, actually. You seemingly don’t remember this, but just before your heart stopped beating and you lost consciousness, you- you told me you loved me. I think- I think deep down, I knew I had some kind of feelings for you since we were trapped in the Desert Otherworld, but I felt so- so _disloyal_ that I just convinced myself it was because you looked like Cecil. I now am very scientifically aware that in fact that isn’t the case and- I mean, I’m actually beginning to doubt that you meant it that way and that I’ve read the situation all wrong which would be painfully awkward and embarrassing so please tell me I haven’t.”

“You haven’t,” Kevin finally says, voice hoarse from pure disbelief. “I have felt the same way about you since the day I met you, Carlos. I never said anything because I knew that I could never get between you and Cecil – I mean,” he stops, smiling sadly at the grass beneath his feet, “you’re perfect for each other, aren’t you? The day you left me with that- that _letter_ in the radio station was one of the worst days of my life so I made myself forget about you. But then I ended up here and started falling for Cecil _too_ because I’m clearly a mess with no control over-”

“You have feelings for me too?” Cecil questions.

Shit.

“I wasn’t supposed to say that out loud. I hereby welcome you to pretend I never spoke if it makes things easier.” Cecil’s face stays unhelpfully blank whilst his mind seems to race, leaving Kevin and Carlos sat in anticipatory silence as he seems to comprehend what’s just been said. “Really, forget it – I’m sorry, I don’t want to ruin things between us.”

Cecil turns Kevin’s face towards his and kisses him.

It’s soft at first, as if he’s testing his boundaries, but once Kevin comes to terms with what’s just happens he quickly reciprocates and he is completely lost in it, fingers lacing themselves into Cecil’s bleached hair and just resting there. The only reason they split is because Carlos makes a kind of desperate throat clearing noise and Kevin remembers. This is the best day of his life. It’s practically the first day of his life, his new life and it is _incredible_.

“Could I possibly kiss you?” he asks, waiting for a grin to spread across Carlos’ face and a nod before he launches himself at the scientist. Kissing Carlos is everything he thought it would be and everything _more_ ; the softness of his lips contrast beautifully with the bitter taste of coffee Kevin chases with his tongue and it’s absolutely perfect. Shudders rain down his spine when Cecil starts mouthing at his neck, and he has to take a second to regain composure when Cecil’s mouth makes its way up to his ear and suggests going inside. The trio stumble through the doorway and into the semi-darkness of Cecil and Carlos’ bedroom, Cecil removing himself from the pile and sitting adjacent to the other two for no apparent reason.

“I want to watch,” he asserts, voice thicker and deeper and doing _wonderful_ things to the feeling in Kevin’s lower abdomen. He doesn’t waste any time and instantly begins exploring the scientist that’s half-trapped underneath him, unable to stop the soft growl from escaping his lips when Carlos lets Kevin pin his wrists above his head. Cacophonies crafted from sharp intakes of breath and the noise their shirts make when they hit the floor are melodies to his ears, teeth scraping against Carlos’ jugular as bites soft pinks and purples into the olive skin. Kevin can feel how the scientist is already half hard beneath him from the way he’s erratically canting his hips up to meet the other man’s, so he doesn’t waste any time in slowly making his way down Carlos’ smooth chest. Pausing momentarily to undo the button on his tight jeans, Kevin begins to mouth at his hipbones and relishes in the soft groan that comes from Cecil as he continues to watch. By the time Carlos’ jeans have made their way to the floor to join his shirt, his cock is straining against his boxers and Kevin realises with delight that despite there no longer being a physical restraint, Carlos has not moved his hands from where they were crossed above his head.

“Can I suck your cock?” he asks, casual voice not betraying how already excited he is. Carlos just inhales heavily and nods, eyes fluttering closed when Kevin starts to mouth at the outline of his cock through the thin cotton. Cecil's eyes are still boring into his back and Kevin _loves_ it - if he's anything he's an exhibitionist and showing off is practically his element. Impatient whines bring him back to the gorgeous scientist beneath him so Kevin finally appeases, inching the boxers down to Carlos' mid thigh and taking the head into his mouth in one smooth movement. Soft moans rumble from his throat as Kevin presses his tongue against the slit, hollowing his cheeks as he moves his head further and further down. Carlos threads his fingers through Kevin's hair and tugs hard, unwillingly forcing a groan from him as he swallows around his cock. Movements of the scientist begin to get more erratic, hips desperately twitching upwards and breath coming in soft pants; Kevin can feel underneath his skin how close Carlos is and he plans to take him all of the way when Cecil finally speaks again, voice thick and husky from arousal.

"Stop," he instructs, Carlos whining at the loss of contact when Kevin pulls off. "I don't want him to come yet."

"What _do_ you want?" he taunts gently, eyes following the way Cecil is still softly palming himself through his trousers.

“I want you to fuck him,” Cecil says, soft voice cutting through the heat in the air, “and then I’m going to fuck you.” Kevin swallows, momentarily focusing on the flushed scientist beneath him. “Do you want that?”

Exhaling slowly, he nods, Carlos’ voice grounding him back into reality from where he whines “ _kiss,_ ” at the pair of them. Cecil doesn’t waste any time, soft lips gently nipping at Kevin’s before he can even comprehend the movement. They move against each other in sync, Cecil’s fingers tangling in his double’s hair as Kevin unbuttons his shirt, hyperaware of Carlos sliding up and pressing himself against his back. Hands snake around his hips to the button on his jeans, slowly pulling down the zipper and forcing a hand into his underwear. The sudden contact makes him hiss into Cecil’s mouth, nails momentarily digging into his hips as Carlos begins to stroke him and bite softly into the bare skin of his nape. It’s been so long since he’s had anything like this – after Strex came along work took up _far_ too much time to be dating – and his skin is craving to be touched, sensations heightened brilliantly as he pushes the polka-dot shirt off of Cecil’s shoulders.

“On your hands and knees,” Cecil pulls away to murmur, and Kevin obliges the second he’s able to. Cecil’s tone isn’t forceful and barely hints at being commanding but it’s still sending spikes into the pooling in his stomach. Carlos helps him tug his jeans off and just sits back on his calves patiently waiting for the attention he knows he’s about to receive. “You want me to?” he asks, smiling darkly when the scientist eagerly nods. Kevin doesn’t move from his position but eventually twists his head to watch as Cecil coats two of his fingers in the lube that appeared on his bedside table and Carlos bends over himself, face pressed into the lemon-scented bedsheets. It’s an _obscene_ thing to behold, the way Carlos ineffectually buries his groans into the mattress as Cecil slides one and then two fingers inside of him and his thighs start to shake. Once Carlos is clenching his fists around the sheets, Cecil turns to his double with the same hungry look he’s been giving Carlos and passes him the lube with his free hand. Confused, Kevin accepts and raises an eyebrow. “We want to watch you.”

That’s all he needed to hear, discarding his boxers immediately and slicking his own fingers with the lube before reaching back to start opening himself up – _this_ , he’s no stranger to. The amount of times he’s fantasized about watching Carlos as he is now whilst doing this to himself is probably higher than it should be, but the exhilaration that comes with having an audience makes it ten times more intense. Neither Cecil nor Carlos seem to be complaining as he manages to eventually push in three fingers, groaning lowly at the stretch (a sound that is then returned at a much higher pitch from Carlos.) Gentle fingers enclose around his wrist and pull his hand away, pressing a chaste kiss to his lower back and coaxing him into sitting back up. Carlos is now splayed out across the bedsheets, flushed olive skin a holy contrast against the soft white cotton and pleading eyes refusing to drop Kevin’s gaze. “How do you want me?” he asks, voice barely pushing past a whisper as he inches his legs open.

“Like- fuck, like this,” Kevin rashly decides. How he’d always imagined it could be, slipping between the scientist’s legs and shuddering as Cecil momentarily appears behind him to slide a condom over his cock with lube-slicked hands before he returns to his cross-legged position on the other side of the bed. He was touching himself to the spectacle in front of him, cock beading precum and breath coming in slight pants. The composure he’s held onto this whole time is finally beginning to crumble and Kevin is _relishing_ in it, relishing in the way he’s digging his teeth into his lip. “You’re ready?” he checks, fingers grasping Carlos’ hips when he nods and mumbles affirmatively. Planning to start slowly he lines himself up with his hole and presses against it gently, but Carlos clearly has something else in mind judging by the way he whines and pushes back against him.

“I need- _now_ , fuck- need _you_ ,” he pleads, and well, Kevin’s hardly going to say _no._ With that he pushes in, groaning as minimal resistance gives way to tight, clenching heat. Carlos lets out a moan that’s bordering on _pornographic_ , fingers scrabbling for grip and eventually coming to grip on Kevin’s shoulder as his cock sinks all the way into Carlos. He starts slowly at first, both of them getting used to the intensity and sharing breathless kisses with foreheads pressed together until Carlos hooks an ankle around the small of his back and urges him to move faster. Broken moans fill the room as nails rake down Kevin’s back. “Fuck- fuck, _god_ , fuck- _Kevin_ ,” he keens, and Kevin never knew his name could sound that good. Then again, he’s pretty certain anything would sound amazing in that debauched voice; Carlos’ eyes are screwed shut but his jaw is slack, face flushed and sweaty in a way that makes him glow as his words begin to mix in both language and coherence. Kevin knows he’s getting close but he can’t cum yet, he won’t. Not with Cecil waiting for him, currently reaching down to jerk Carlos off and help him reach his peak.

When he comes he does so with his whole body, muscles tightening and back arching magnificently off of the bed as he cries out. It’s the most beautiful thing Kevin has ever seen.

Both he and Cecil know the other isn’t going to last very long, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t _amazing_ when Cecil _finally_ pushes into him, jarring him perfectly for a few thrusts before pausing to hoist one of Kevin’s legs over his shoulder. Kevin chokes out a gasp at the change of angle, sensations heightening as he and his double move as one. Cecil’s composure has melted away completely as his flushed forehead rests in the crook of Kevin’s neck, mumbling and moaning incoherently. At the moment, the haze of pleasure is too much for him to care, but he knows at some point he wants to properly see him unfold, to _make_ Cecil come apart in the same way Cecil made him.

As predicted, neither of them last very long but they both climax in sync and perfect chirality.

Cecil lies next to him whilst they both catch their breath, Carlos gently wiping him with a t-shirt that had been discarded at end of the bed. After what seems to be considerable internal debate, Cecil leans forward and presses a soft kiss to Kevin’s forehead. He’s barely clinging to consciousness, just awake enough to let Carlos pull the comforter out from underneath his legs and tuck it over the pair of them before spooning up behind him. Kevin feels- well, content.


	10. einde

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kevin does not think about Lauren.

He wakes up with a jump, as he usually does, eyes quickly assessing the unfamiliar surroundings he’s just woken in. Carlos’ arm strewn over his chest and Cecil’s forehead pressed against his neck makes him realise with a soft pang that he hadn’t dreamt last night. The feel of both their skin against his was real. Being able to fall asleep between the two of them was real. The feeling both of them reciprocated was _real_.

The sudden movement causes Carlos to stir, gently tugging Kevin in closer until their faces are millimetres apart. Brown eyes meet black and the two of them just stare for what feels like hours in a way they’ve never been able to before. Sure, Kevin spends the majority of his time with Carlos staring at him – only before, Kevin rarely looked at Carlos and caught Carlos looking back. Now he’s taking in everything on a level he was never able to before; the soft marks of crow’s feet in the corners of his eyes, the softness of his deep brown eyes and the butterfly feeling brought on by that beautiful smile that’s finally being directed towards him. “Good morning,” Carlos whispers, voice husky from sleep as Kevin falls in love all over again. This has got to be the best thing that has ever happened to him. Instead of articulating this, however, or even forming a vaguely decent greeting response, he makes some kind of squeaking noise then buries his blushing face in the crook of his elbow. Cecil murmurs something and snuggles into Kevin, securing him in some kind of death grip hug before seemingly falling back asleep so that now all Kevin can do is watch Carlos quietly laugh at him. “He won’t admit it, but he’s quite the cuddler, especially whilst he’s sleeping.” Kevin can’t help but smile at this – it’s a weak smile, because it’s just all so new. “What?” Carlos frowns, rubbing the sleep from his eyes as his picks up on the hesitation.

“It’s- none of this feels _real_ , y’know? I’m waiting to wake up or stop daydreaming or whatever.”

“Why wouldn’t it be real?”

“I’ve wanted this since the day I met you,” he forces himself to say, focusing on the soft grey mixed in with his perfect hair to avoid meeting his beautiful eyes. “For _years_ I’ve told myself that this could never, _ever_ happen and now- now it has, I think? I hope it has, and that’s amazing and everything but I was so certain that it could never, ever be real that it’s hard to get to grips with it.”

Carlos nods slowly, reaching to brush the pad of his thumb against Kevin’s cheekbone. “It’s real. I meant everything I said to you yesterday,” he promises. Kevin’s heart _soars_. “When did you start having feelings for Cecil, though?”

Kevin swallows, relaxing into the other man’s touch. This isn’t as black-and-white. “I should have hated him. From the moment we met – other than in that weird vortex which we aren’t going to talk about – he had everything I wanted and couldn’t have. He was free in himself and he was fighting to remain that way and he _won_. He still had a sister, and a niece and- and he had _you_. I just couldn’t hate him, though, no matter how hard I tried. I’ve never been very good at hating people anyway, so that might have been part of it, but I could never hate Cecil. That- that night I got my memories back and we watched that movie together, he put his head on my shoulder and it _hit_ me, how we’re doubles but how we couldn’t be any more different to each other and- and-”

“You fit together perfectly?” Carlos fills in for him, smiling softly when Kevin flushes a soft pink. That’s exactly what he means – he and Cecil clash in a way that inexplicably just makes _sense_. Soft hands snake around his bare stomach, a soft puff of warm breath reaching his neck as Cecil mumbles something in his sleep and eventually ceasing to stir. “See what I mean?” Carlos asks, and Kevin does. Cecil’s fingers had found his and laced his own over the top and his whole body is warmly intertwined with Kevin’s as he continued to sleep, the scientist watching the pair of them with shining adoration.

***

Slow-moving days blend into weeks, weeks beginning to melt into months. Kevin decides this is the happiest he has ever truly felt; the first time his own joy is truly his own in a long, long time. Part of it is because it’s just so _normal_. Carlos says that nothing in Night Vale can never, ever truly be normal, but this domesticity that he’s managed to fill his weeks with is the most simple thing he has ever felt. Maybe happiness warmer than any sun he’s ever felt shouldn’t be washing over his head whenever Cecil comes up behind him and loosely wraps his arms around Kevin’s waist when he cooks breakfast in the morning. Maybe his heart shouldn’t soar so high he feels as if it will tear out of the cavity in his chest whenever Carlos rambles tangents about his science, or whenever he overworks himself and ends up falling asleep on Kevin after dinner on the couch. Maybe he shouldn’t be feeling prouder than work _ever_ made him feel when either of the two refers to him as their boyfriend. Maybe he shouldn’t be feeling any of this, but he is, and it’s the best thing he has ever felt.

Maybe this is why he let his guard down. He doesn’t think about Lauren.

Weekly, he takes the rusty bus with no air conditioning over to Desert Bluffs to spend the morning helping to clean up and then the afternoon with Vanessa. With her as company he doesn’t mind opening the studio back up – after all, it is technically _his_ studio since the angels legally gave it to him after they purchased Strex – and even setting up the computer to automatically broadcast twice a week so she can have her own radio show. She can’t push the buttons, after all. Sometimes, she asks him when he’s going to come back and start doing his show again. Every time, he laughs and brushes her off. Not yet, is what he means. He’s not ready yet. One day, he promises. This time he means it.

He doesn’t think about Lauren.

Occasionally, he spends the afternoon sat at Abigail’s grave with some freshly picked peonies and talks to her about his new life and apologises about his old one. The guilt does not ebb, but its settling becomes less restrictive as time does what it always does; it passes, regardless of how he feels. It is can be a killer, but one of the many things Kevin has learnt is that time is neither an enemy nor a friend. Time simply exists, and if you wish you may choose to exist along with it and its oppressive limitations. You cannot interfere with time – it will continue to move in a somewhat linear fashion until your inexorable death and then will continue after as if you had never lived to begin with. Guilt born in the past will never truly dissipate but it can remain where it was formed in the past if you let it and instead choose to move with the flow of time. Kevin makes this choice. It doesn’t mean he stops helping fix his town, or stops bringing flowers to his sister’s grave. They just become his choices instead of feelings of obligations. Things he is glad to be able to do.

Kevin doesn’t think about Lauren.

Kevin doesn’t think about Lauren until he does, and it’s too late.

It is pitch black outside when he wakes, immediately up once he realises the places beside him in the shared bed are cold from being empty. Icy terror shoots through his veins as his eyes take in the darkened surroundings of the living room he runs into; the torn canvas, the shattered TV screen. The wide open front door. The trail of blood on the carpet leading to the gate.

There’s no note, no signature, no inkling as to who could have done this. Despite that, Kevin knows. Kevin knows this is that night he was shown, that he has until 3:47 to fix whatever Lauren has done before his life is torn to shreds. Forcing himself to breathe, he clambers out of the open screen door and doesn’t look at the smears of blood on the glass on his way to the bloodstone circle. She is the best chance he has at finding them, so he spills his own blood as sacrifice over the stones to show his devotion before he begins to summon her.

Like normal, she arrives before the chant has finished, but he does not open his eye until he is able to add his request. “мага жардам бер. Өтүнөмүн _._ ” _Help me. Please._

_“The prophecy I shared with has begun. I may not alter the fates for you, тыныгуу.”_

“That is not what I request from you, жарыктын кудайы. I- I know I must do this alone.” His hands are slick with blood, so he makes no move to wipe the tears from his face. His third eye, her gift to him, is the only thing allowing him to look her directly in her eyes, her light spilling into his soul and forcing peace with every breath. “I don’t know where she’s taken them,” he whispers, voice breaking in desperation.

“ _You do. Visit your past and the answer will present itself.”_

Kevin lets out a sob at this, sinking his head down onto his knees. He doesn’t _know_ , and he’s running out of time.

 _“Where is it that would cause you the most pain? The place you choose to avoid at all costs. That is the price you must pay to retrieve what does not belong to her.”_ Silence passes, empty and suffocating to be only broken by his crying. _“Do not cry, бала. Remember that this path is yours to take because it has not yet been written for you. Fate has gifted you with this chance and you must take it or the outcome will no longer be yours. The place where you wrongfully took lives has become the place you must reclaim them. Souls waiting there for you hold no anger. You are not blamed for the actions you were forced to commit, the path you were forced to take. Бала, this is your chance to let these children rest.”_

“Children? I don’t-”

The warehouse. The souls waiting there are the lives he took. The last place he would ever want to go. Of _course_ she would make him go there.

“Thank you, жарыктын кудайы,” he rushes out. “Forgive me for asking, but may any other help be offered?”

A blinding light fills the garden just for a second, revealing what appear to be Carlos’ car keys floating in front of him and his own shirt, jeans and shoes materialising around him. “My gratitude overwhelms me.”

_“I am grateful for your sacrifice. You must go now.”_

With that, she disappears, Kevin wasting no time on his way out to Carlos’ car and not letting himself breathe out until the engine is running. A godlike warmth burns into his skin as the gas meter begins to fill up, so he marks a cross on his forehead as a thank you and then just drives. Obviously he’s careful to watch the road law whilst he’s still in the city because he doesn’t have time to get stopped by any of the sheriff’s secret police, but once he reaches route 800 his foot slams on the pedal and he’s driving faster than he’s ever driven before. 02:59 blinks up at him in warning red from the dashboard. Kevin has forty-eight minutes.

It takes him twenty three minutes to reach the outskirts of desert bluffs and a further nine before he reaches the outside of the abandoned warehouse. Up close (it’s been cordoned off since the incident) it’s explicitly clear that the roof partially caving could not have been responsible for the number of deaths that day – barely a quarter of the roof is gone, and the area seems to be located over the storage rooms instead of the larger room where everyone had been. Not that it mattered, anyway, because nobody would have said anything. Nobody ever said anything. Kevin has sixteen minutes.

There are two men standing either side of the doorway, both of who have multiple semi-automatic pistols strapped to various places around their body with none of them appearing to have silencers in effect. He doesn’t doubt that he could take them down with the knife he grabbed from the medicine cabinet, but if he misjudges their movements even slightly then Lauren will hear the gunshot and he won’t be able to move in stealth anymore. Instead he makes his way around the back of the building using the bushes and the darkness as cover before scaling the drainpipe and re-assessing his entry points from the roof. There’s an open window on the right side of the building with a bored looking guard leaning out of it with a cigarette, high up enough that Kevin should be able to swing down and kick him as long as he has a sufficient grip on the gutter. He doesn’t waste time working out the logistics of it like lining himself up perfectly with the guy’s head or trying to calculate what angle his legs should be at when he swings down. He just does it, landing with a knife in the guy’s throat and slashing the skin before waiting a few seconds to see if the noise of the body on the floor had attracted any attention. Kevin has nine minutes.

There’s quite a lot of real-estate to cover, but he’s able to deduce pretty quickly that the second floor is empty bar the now-corpse had been sitting at the top of the stairs waiting for him. He dies silently, as do the two at the bottom of the stairs, but Kevin is still heavily uneasy. Lauren is expecting him, and whilst that wouldn’t usually worry him, his mind keeps flicking back to the vision of being too late, the one where he never showed up at all. Something went very, very wrong in that version of his reality, and he needs to ensure that whatever it was doesn’t happen. Kevin has five minutes.

Cecil sees him first, eyes momentarily widening but thankfully making no obvious gestures towards him. His double has been secured to a set of pipes running up the wall and looks worryingly roughed up, but he’s still conscious and aware so Kevin thinks he’s probably okay.

Carlos is lying slumped at Lauren’s feet in a scary pool of blood, occasionally choking in a ragged breath as she leans over him with her knife. Kevin has four minutes. He gives up trying to hide.

“Long time no see!” he greets her, the warmth in his voice not at all betraying the anger that is bubbling beneath it.

“And yet, I feel I’ve been on your mind quite frequently – consequentially, it seems as if we were never even apart,” she smiles, momentarily forgetting Carlos and stepping over his body to see the other man.

“Though it seems as if you’ve had trouble getting through recently, no?”

Her smile widens dangerously, neither of their casual movements or warm tones hiding the bloodied knives in either right hand. “A minor complication at most.”

“Why are you here?”

“And I always thought you loved the formal pleasantries,” she sighs, absentmindedly tracing the knife along the inside of her wrist. “You _abandoned_ us before the battle of Night Vale had even begun – did you know we were to lose?”

“I wasn’t sure,” he admits, “but I knew the risk of staying wasn’t worth it were you to win.”

“You didn’t betray us,” Lauren realises, grin stretching unnaturally wide. “You _deserted us_. Coward.”

“You took everything from me. You destroyed my home. You _murdered_ my sister when she hadn’t done _anything_ wrong. You took my free will and my mind. I was pretty certain you would lose, but I was beyond caring – I needed to get away from StrexCorp before it killed me.”

“Oh, and what a shame it didn’t. Abigail was... expendable.” Kevin doesn’t miss her eyes scanning his clenched fists. _She’s trying to get in his head_. He’s not going to let her. “Most humans tend to be expendable, actually,” she continues, turning on her heel to roll Carlos over with her boot. “Expendable, fragile. So _easy_ to make them beg.” Carlos doesn’t stir or open his eyes, but now he’s on his back Kevin can see the steady rise of his chest and relaxes slightly. “Human life is certainly a gift, one that has been bestowed on us by our glorious smiling God. However,” she beams, tilting up the scientist’s jaw with the tip of her blade, “we have also been gifted with the ability to choose. Life can be given, or we can choose to take it away. сен меники.” It’s the command she would use to _encourage_ him to follow an order, though she hasn’t seemed to notice that it hasn’t taken its normal effect. “Kevin?” she asks, waiting for him to tilt his head in question. “Kill your double.”

Kevin immediately begins to get closer to Cecil, drawing his knife as he steps over Carlos’ body. Ideally, he wants Lauren as far away from the pair of them as possible, so he waits until she’s started to approach before swivelling on his heels. “No.”

She rolls her eyes. “Fine, I guess we’ll have to do it the other way,” she grumbles, drawing two knives from either side and brandishing them towards him. Okay, maybe he wasn’t expecting her to be armed, but he’s sure he can find a way around it. “You know,” she says conversationally as they begin to parry, “I still think we could’ve been such good friends.”

Kevin kicks up to jar her left hand, the weaker arm, whilst clashing his own blade with the one in her right hand. “In another world,” he agrees, because it’s true. They’re very similar, and in a world without Strex or the smiling God, they would probably be close friends. Lauren’s image is starting to melt away as she moves faster and faster, clotting blood leaking from her eyes as her skin starts to sag and cheeks start to split. “I think we both knew it would end up like this.”

“It is distasteful to prolong life artificially. You should have died a _long_ time ago.”

“Oh, but I’m still very much alive! _You’re_ the one who should be drowning in their own blood,” he beams, planting his knife in her leg and using it as leverage to kick one of her knives out of her hand. “Everyone has a death date, Lauren,” he continues. She’s beginning to get sloppier as they continue, which seems odd considering her past fighting experience and stamina, but Kevin won’t be one to complain. “Your time is up.”

Lauren was his friend for years. Kevin will never be able to truly hate her.

When he kills her, he does it quickly.

She _thanks_ him. Kevin’s left standing over the body of somebody who was once his friend; her knife embedded in his arm (which he can’t really feel,) her blood on his hands. Gratitude had been relieving.

“Kevin?” Cecil calls, voice tired and thick with caution.

“Right,” Kevin remembers, shaking his head away from Lauren and hurrying over to his double before slicing through his restraints and giving him a thorough once-over. Overall, it definitely could be worse – on Kevin’s mental list of first aid needing doing he ads steri-stripping the cut above Cecil’s eye and ice-packing his nose due to it probably being broken under ‘deal with knife in my arm.’ “What did she- what happened to Carlos?”

“I was unconscious for part of it. She kicked him, um, and kind of sliced his skin a fair bit. Do we need to carry him?”

“I’ve got him, don’t worry. You’re limping, so you shouldn’t be putting too much weight on your ankle.” Effortlessly, because he’s a sucker for showing off, Kevin scoops up Carlos’ limp body and stands up to follow his double out of the building and back to the car. The guards who had been there earlier are still there but they seemingly either don’t notice or don’t care when the duo walk past. Other than brief negotiation on how to navigate Carlos into a lying down position in the back seat, the rest of the journey is completely silent. Now that the adrenaline has worn off, fear is giving away to guilt. This is Kevin’s fault entirely – he put them in danger by being with them. He _knew_ Lauren was trying to find him, so why would he assume she’d given up?

Carlos begins to stir once he’s lain back in bed having his cuts wiped by Kevin, but it’s only into mumbles of barely-conscious murmuring. Cecil sits by the pair of them with a bag of frozen peas secured to his face, humming softly and applying plasters to the smaller wounds on his fingers and up his arms. It’s only when Kevin has done as much as he can to Carlos and sits back exhausted that Cecil stops humming to clear his throat. “Your arm,” he reminds softly, and Kevin remembers the blade implanted in the flesh of his forearm. The handle had snapped off before he’d even noticed it, but the metal of the dagger is still very clearly in his arm.

“Why can’t I feel it?” he asks, body trying to force a light tone but ending up just sounding afraid.

“Let me get it out, okay?” he pleads, and Kevin does not complain. He sits on the kitchen counter with his arm over the sink and pretends not to wince when Cecil pulls the blade out of his arm. Despite whatever Carlos did with his blood, the wound starts to clot immediately and after a few minutes of Cecil squeezing his arm with a blood-soaked tea towel all that’s left is a deep scab. To be safe, the pair tape it up and slap a bandage on it, but Kevin’s certain it’ll be gone by the morning.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, head dropping dejectedly as Cecil leads him into the guest bedroom. “I knew she was still looking for me, I should’ve done something or made-”

“Don’t,” is all Cecil says, lying down in the bed and patting the space next to him. Kevin fills it, reluctantly, but doesn’t let himself relax into the mattress. “What’s passed has passed and is past,” he yawns, smiling softly at his own words. “All three of us are okay. That is all that matters.” Then, after a moment or two of silence, he pulls Kevin close to his chest. Kevin breathes in time to the heartbeat of the two of them and buries his face into his double’s neck. “It’s over now,” he reminds, and this is when Kevin lets himself cry. Unsurprisingly, Cecil doesn’t complain – just hushes him and softly strokes his back.

Kevin has never felt safer.


	11. epilogos

‘ _The future will not reveal itself to you, no matter how nicely you ask. Welcome to Desert Bluffs._

_Good afternoon, Desert Bluffs! For the first time in a very long time, this is Kevin bringing you all your news and potential spiritual encounters during another glorious day in the Bluffs. Another in the long list of first-time-in-a-long-time’s is our lovely community radio station truly being **community** radio once again. Isn’t that just delightful? No more faux-friendly big corporate monster devouring our beautiful town and everything it stood for. We are, once again, our own selves._

_Now, I won’t go around saying that we’ve been freed, because that would just be plain rude towards the secret police and the world government agencies that spend their time carefully monitoring us and restricting our free will. How could we ever forget them? What we have been given is ourselves. We have been given a new beginning. An opportunity to step back and re-evaluate the outlook we have on our temporary lives. When did you last tell your closest friend that you love them? Perhaps you should give them a call! Maybe it’s time to let go of that silly little grudge you’ve been holding for the past few years and make amends. After all, I’m sure that since our rather hostile takeover you’ve discovered there are more important things than who ate the last slice of pizza, even if you **specifically** asked somebody to save it for you. _

_Have you spoken to your mother recently? Does she even know if you’re alive?_

_Here’s what’s been going on recently._

_For starters, we have some simply excellent news: the Desert Bluffs’ Cacti elementary school has been officially re-opened! It’s been a hard few months of work but so many of you lovely citizens have volunteered to help with rebuilding our home – oh, we must thank the Night Vale scientists and my fellow radio broadcaster Cecil Palmer for the enormous amount of help they’ve provided. Three cheers for science and community radio! Thanks to the help of them and all of the relentless work of the citizens of the Bluffs, our little town is slowly becoming what it once was. Of course, some of us are still coming to terms with the crushing reality of change and how even if we build it to be exactly how it was it will never be the same, and I know as much as any of you that it is hard. What you mustn’t forget is that change can be good. Our community was nearly crushed by Strex and what it did, both to the town and to us. But we fought back. We fought, and we fought, and we **won**. Nothing can take the strength we gained away from us, Desert Bluffs._

_Let’s take a peek at traffic!_

_Darkness surrounds us all._

_It absorbs any light that dares to shine through the cracks in our world, engulfing its power and destroying it completely. It will not be able to reach us anymore. Regrets do not disappear along with the light; neither does guilt, nor loss. In fact, the darkness allows you to see them clearer than you ever have before, and this is what you needed. Perhaps it is not what you wanted, but it is what you needed. It is what we all need._

_The darkness is a relief, and it is welcomed._

_That was the traffic, listeners, and what a lovely traffic report it was. Now, Vanessa’s telling me we’ve been getting lots of messages asking about me! You all want to know about silly old me, apparently, and what’s been going on in my life. It’s very kind of you to ask. I won’t get into all of the past things, because I’m sure we would all prefer to leave certain things in the past. Besides, what use is news if it isn’t happy news?_

_They told me not to make a big deal about it and all that but I simply can’t help it – I’m so excited! Remember the certain Cecil Palmer and scientists I mentioned earlier? I’m sure you all know Carlos, the head scientist... gosh, how do I say this. We’re dating now! The three of us are just... wow._

_My apologies, listeners. I don’t want to get carried away. This is **community** news, after all, not Kevin’s news. Let’s hear a word from our sponsors._

_Do you ever wish you could fly?_

_Freedom, the kind that birds are able to glide and soar within, is just around the corner. The beauty of endless skylines to climb is just within reach and the sense of invincibility it welcomes is **incredible**._

_What a shame you’ll never be able to feel it._

_Walgreen’s. Our iceberg lettuce is now half price._

_Well, now that there’s no station management – other than me, really – I guess I can talk about whatever I want. I won’t get too into my personal life, because it doesn’t just involve me, but since you’re all so desperate to know I’ll simply have to indulge you. I do indeed live in Night Vale now. It’s no Desert Bluffs, obviously, but it’s still home to me and Cecil and Carlos. And what a beautiful thing a home can be. I’ve had quite a few houses and apartments over the years, but I believe this is my first ever home. And let me tell you, listeners; I’ve never been happier. As always, tomorrow will be a new day, but for the first time in a very long time I will be happy to move on into it._

_And as always, until next time, Desert Bluffs. Until next time._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you made it this far, thank you for reading! please let me know what you think of it in the comments!


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